As I have said from the beginning of this series, through no fault of your own you may have not received the information or training necessary to be successful at operating a machine or running a safe facility. In businesses with high employee turnover sometimes things just drop through the cracks like a game of telephone going horribly wrong. Hopefully these blogs will give you an edge amongst your peers, impress your bosses up the chain and give you the confidence to do the job correctly.

What is a (IIPP) Illness and Injury Prevention Plan?  It is a written process to help companies identify and rectify workplace hazards reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities. It should also include how your employees are expected to react in emergencies like the importance of reporting injuries and accidents as well as how too.

Many workplaces have already adopted such approaches, in fact 34 states require or encourage employers to implement these programs. Companies are encouraged to review their IIPP to update procedures as needed but as a store manager you don’t have to worry about that but you do need to make sure your copy of your companies IIPP is current and enforced.

Sitting there on your desk is a binder. Chances are a consultant was paid much money to decide the color of that binder along with the fonts and section dividers so you’ll notice it and sense the vital trove of information contained within. Hopefully it’s been kept up to date as corporate has no doubt issued updates over time. I have walked into an office where the IIPP binder was on the desk, labeled and proudly displayed, empty, but proudly displayed just the same.

The binder should have sections covering the areas of management leadership, worker participation, hazard identification and assessment, hazard prevention and control, education and training, and program evaluation and improvement. Go through it from start to finish and if it seems incomplete and you can’t find updates from corporate piled in a file draw, call H.R. or the corporate Safety Officer and verify that you have all aspects of the IIPP. As you read the IIPP make notes on items you are not sure about and research on google. Take periodic walks around your facility and make sure you are following the guidelines. Be kind, as updates come in under your rein, read them, implement them and place them in the binder immediately. Just cause your predecessor left a mess you don’t have to and you do want that good karma. That is also the kind of thing that’ll get you noticed if you’re planning on staying with the company.

You have other resources in addition to corporate headquarters, contact managers at other locations for info and build relationships and you may have district or area managers who’s brains you can pick. You can also go to your states OSHA if you have one or US Governments OSHA websites for guidance only since they won’t include your companies specific IIPP. Either way, you have no excuse not to make sure all your employees are working safely and keeping your customers from harm which will also keep you out of the local 11 O’clock news.