Safety.GIF

Safety Around Every Corner

As you encounter City employees working in the streets, maintaining the parks, life-guarding at the pools or operating equipment and various machines, you probably don’t give much thought behind the training needed to complete the task or the safety issues that may exist.

When it comes to meeting training standards or following safety rules and regulations, the Department of Commerce (DOC) governs the City. The DOC is equal to what OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is, to the private business sector.

We have been working hard on building databases under Access, in order to track the training of each employee and each department. A person’s responsibilities will dictate what type of training they need, how often it is needed and the intensity of the training. This can be very time consuming because training is an ongoing thing and each position is unique.

The DOC visits from time to time to inspect our training records and the facilities under which a person works. Everything must be in order for us to pass our inspection. If something is missing or needs to be changed, we are advised and a follow up inspection will most likely occur.

In order to keep procedures and safety practices uniform, we put the procedures in writing and implement them in the form of a policy. The policy is our guideline so we have something to reference if needed. We also have been working hard on creating and updating new and existing policies.

So the next time you visit one of the City buildings or observe a city employee working outside, whether you realize it or not, you may be witnessing a safety procedure in action or their training put to use.