Page 35 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2018

Formal requirements aside, sharing sampling results just makes good sense. It ensures that employees have information they need to work safely and fosters an environment of trust needed for an effective EHS culture.
Managing Change
To be impactful, your sampling protocol must reflect the risk anal- yses for all operations as they exist today. This means that when changes are planned, you need to identify the ways these changes may affect employee exposures. These changes can include opera- tional changes, for example installation of new equipment such as ovens, printing presses, or machining equipment, or facility chang- es, such as plant renovations.
Have a formal process for identifying the impact of changes, so that hazards can be identified at every step and proper controls identified. The number of approvals that need to be documented can be overwhelming, so it might be wise to explore management of change software solutions that can easily route approvals, re- mind approvers, and maintain an audit trail. If the system includes a method to inform the appropriate people to review IH implica- tions of the plans and update the protocol accordingly, you’ll be much more likely to be able to keep your IH program aligned with your current operations.
Reality Intervenes: A Word About Funding
The reality of running EHS programs is that money is often a stum- bling block. Companies often see EHS as a “cost center,” but even in
the best cultures, funding can be a challenge.
Make sure you’re factoring in enough money for effective IH
sampling in your annual budget. You may identify a need to expand your IH sampling protocol due to planned changes. You may also need to perform types of sampling you’ve never conducted before, such as noise dosimetry, if warranted by review of new processes. If you obtained any sampling results over established enforceable limits such as the PEL, you’ll need to take corrective actions and re-sample. Make sure you’re budgeting enough extra funds to cover these kinds of additional sampling.
Closing Thoughts
Industrial hygiene has many dimensions, and to do it well, you need the proactive involvement of your entire workforce. Fortu- nately, there are EHS software solutions that can significantly sim- plify the management of many of these tasks, such as conducting Job Safety Analyses (JSA), Management of Change (MOC) work- flow, Risk Assessments, and Corrective Actions. With the right strategies and tools, you’ll overcome the challenges and create an industrial hygiene program that protects your most important as- set—your employees.
Zoë Frances is a Product Marketing Director at VelocityEHS, the global leader in cloud environment, health, safety (EHS), and sus- tainability software. To learn more about VelocityEHS and how it can help you reach your EHS goals faster through faster implementa- tions and easier to use products, visit www.EHS.com.
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