What All Facility Owners Need to Know Before a Safety and Compliance Audit

How to Pre­pare for Your First Safe­ty and Com­pli­ance Audit

Going through a man­dat­ed safe­ty and com­pli­ance audit for the first time can be over­whelm­ing and some­times nerve-wrack­ing for facil­i­ty own­ers. Gaps and unre­solved issues can lead to cost­ly con­se­quences and legal reper­cus­sions. For­tu­nate­ly, safe­ty and com­pli­ance audits are some­thing you can pre­pare for. 

Here are some prepa­ra­tion tips before a safe­ty and com­pli­ance audit: 

Research the Facility’s Safe­ty and Com­pli­ance Record before the audit;

gath­er and check the safe­ty and com­pli­ance records of your facil­i­ty before the audit. To make this eas­i­er, imple­ment a record-keep­ing sys­tem that allows you to track defi­cien­cies. The sys­tem can also be use­ful in keep­ing a clear audit trail. 

If there is no record-keep­ing sys­tem, allo­cate ample time for acquir­ing records. You will be deal­ing with tons of doc­u­ments and need to ensure all rel­e­vant items are avail­able. The process can be time-con­sum­ing, so it’s bet­ter to do the research days or weeks before the audit.

What Facil­i­ty Own­ers Need to Know Before a Safe­ty and Com­pli­ance Audit

Make Sure All Paper­work Is Filled Out and Updated

Dur­ing an audit, audi­tors will review your paper­work to learn whether your facil­i­ty com­plies with the rules and rec­om­men­da­tions. Since rules con­stant­ly change, facil­i­ty own­ers should stay updat­ed and mod­i­fy their prac­tices as need­ed. Before the audit, review your paper­work to ensure every­thing is com­plete and updated. 

Dou­ble-check every­thing to dis­cov­er any miss­ing infor­ma­tion. To sim­pli­fy the task, cre­ate a facil­i­ty safe­ty audit check­list that includes all the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments. Ensure you review the doc­u­ments reg­u­lar­ly so they stay up-to-date. It’s best not to wait until the last minute to review and revise paper­work. By stay­ing on top of all the require­ments, you can increase the chances of a stress-free and suc­cess­ful audit.

Pre­pare a Sched­ule and Des­ig­nate Personnel

The audi­tor will vis­it the facil­i­ty to inspect the infra­struc­ture, inter­nal con­trols, and work envi­ron­ment. Hav­ing a sched­ule for the day of the audit makes the process more seam­less. Let your team know about the upcom­ing activ­i­ties because audi­tors are like­ly to ask them ques­tions to uncov­er any gaps and poten­tial issues. Prepar­ing your employ­ees for the audit is also cru­cial since they will be the ones exe­cut­ing the safe­ty pro­ce­dures you have in place. 

To make the audit more seam­less, it is best to des­ig­nate an audit liai­son with­in your facil­i­ty to act as the point of con­tact for the audi­tor. Choose an expe­ri­enced team mem­ber with strong com­mu­ni­ca­tion and project man­age­ment skills. Let the liai­son devel­op a list of team mem­bers capa­ble of pro­vid­ing sup­port in gath­er­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion and oth­er tasks.

Estab­lish a com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan with every­one involved in the audit, includ­ing any third-par­ty con­trac­tors or subcontractors.

Set­ting up a com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan is vital for the suc­cess of an audit, ensur­ing that all stake­hold­ers are on the same page and facil­i­tat­ing a smooth process. This plan should encom­pass not only inter­nal teams but also any third-par­ty con­trac­tors or sub­con­trac­tors involved.

First, define clear lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, spec­i­fy­ing the pri­ma­ry points of con­tact with­in your orga­ni­za­tion and among third par­ties. Estab­lish reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion inter­vals, whether through meet­ings, reports, or updates, to keep every­one informed and aligned with the audit’s objec­tives and time­line. More­over, set expec­ta­tions for report­ing, data shar­ing, and issue resolution. 

By out­lin­ing roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties, you min­i­mize poten­tial mis­un­der­stand­ings and max­i­mize effi­cien­cy. Ensure all par­ties under­stand the audit’s pur­pose, scope, and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty require­ments to main­tain trust and pro­tect sen­si­tive information.

Check Equip­ment and Supplies

Dur­ing a facil­i­ty safe­ty audit, audi­tors will want to know whether the equip­ment with­in your facil­i­ty pos­es a safe­ty risk. Some may only per­form visu­al inspec­tions, while oth­ers may require you to move your equip­ment to test for prop­er func­tion and safe­ty. So before the day of the audit, check that the equip­ment works as intend­ed and is still in tip-top shape. Con­duct cal­i­bra­tion checks, test­ing, and rou­tine maintenance.

Aside from ensur­ing all your equip­ment is ful­ly func­tion­ing, you should also con­firm that your facil­i­ty has emer­gency med­ical kits, fire extin­guish­ers, and oth­er safe­ty equip­ment and sup­plies per­ti­nent to the audit scope. The items should be avail­able on-site and com­ply with indus­try stan­dards and regulations.

Esti­mate Poten­tial Risks

Many pos­si­ble risks could arise dur­ing your facil­i­ty’s audit process. Inad­e­quate train­ing or over­sight can make your team miss crit­i­cal safe­ty haz­ards. Some per­son­nel may resist or refuse to coop­er­ate, hin­der­ing data col­lec­tion. You may even miss recent changes in the safe­ty and com­pli­ance process. If you don’t deal with or pre­pare for these risks pri­or to the audit, your facil­i­ty may face mon­e­tary fines, legal penal­ties, mate­r­i­al loss, and even rep­u­ta­tion damage. 

That’s why prop­er plan­ning, clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and thor­ough train­ing are cru­cial for the audit’s suc­cess. But it will also help to review inci­dent reports, revis­it past audit find­ings, and ana­lyze near-miss incidents.

Ben­e­fits of Safe­ty and Com­pli­ance Audits

A safe­ty and com­pli­ance audit is not a choice but a neces­si­ty, espe­cial­ly in indus­tries like man­u­fac­tur­ing and health­care. All the prepa­ra­tion need­ed may seem like too much work, but it’s worth the effort because of its ben­e­fits. Audits help to ensure the well-being of your per­son­nel, boost busi­ness oper­a­tions, and even aid in the facil­i­ty’s longevity.

With the audit, you can like­ly pre­vent injuries and acci­dents, avoid­ing asso­ci­at­ed costs. The audit will help you deter­mine poten­tial haz­ards and non-com­pli­ance issues you have to work on to achieve a safer work­ing envi­ron­ment. You can also use audits to iden­ti­fy inef­fi­cien­cies and redun­dan­cies in your operations. 

Oth­er ben­e­fits include pro­tect­ing your bot­tom line and uphold­ing your busi­ness’s trust­wor­thi­ness and integri­ty in the eyes of the pub­lic and stake­hold­ers. If you stay com­mit­ted to safe­ty and com­pli­ance, your facil­i­ty can attract and retain clients who pri­or­i­tize respon­si­ble and eth­i­cal practices. 

Safe­ty and Com­pli­ance Audit Prepa­ra­tion FAQs

What Are the Four Gen­er­al Areas to Check Dur­ing a Safe­ty Audit?

If your facil­i­ty will be audit­ed, check any process­es that could endan­ger people’s health and safe­ty, the behav­iors of your employ­ees, com­pli­ance with the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) reg­u­la­tions and require­ments, and work­place safe­ty measures.

What Are the Require­ments for a Com­pli­ance Audit?

It depends on what your facil­i­ty is get­ting audit­ed for. Gen­er­al­ly, orga­ni­za­tions that want or need to be audit­ed pro­vide nec­es­sary doc­u­ments on rel­e­vant pro­ce­dures and poli­cies and filled-out paperwork. 

What Is the Pur­pose of Safe­ty Audits in the Workplace?

In addi­tion to avoid­ing legal reper­cus­sions and ensur­ing the facil­i­ty remains com­pli­ant with fed­er­al and state reg­u­la­tions, safe­ty audits will help employ­ers deter­mine areas of their busi­ness that need improve­ment. Audits will also help facil­i­ty own­ers and man­agers cre­ate a safe work­ing environment.

Stay Com­pli­ant With Kaloutas

Get­ting audit­ed soon? Kaloutas can help you pre­pare your facil­i­ty and ensure it stays com­pli­ant with your industry’s rules and reg­u­la­tions. We are hap­py to devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive facil­i­ty audit review with you. Whether you require indus­tri­al clean­ing, repair to dam­aged con­crete floors or joints, or paint­ing to haz­ard areas, Kaloutas’ expert team has you covered. 

Kaloutas strives to meet and exceed indus­try stan­dards. If your facil­i­ty has demands and com­pli­ance needs, we can cus­tomize our facil­i­ty main­te­nance, fire­proof­ing, indus­tri­al clean­ing, and oth­er ser­vices accord­ing­ly. In every project, Kaloutas promis­es zero down­time, which means the team will com­plete all projects with­out caus­ing unplanned work stop­pages or pro­duc­tion delays.

For a free, com­pre­hen­sive Facil­i­ty Audit Prep, please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact Kaloutas today.