Since the inception of the Comp Alliance, the goal of the risk management department has been to identify potential workplace hazards likely to contribute to employee injuries and assist our members in removing such hazards.  Perhaps the best method to accomplish this goal is to provide safety training for applicable municipal staff.  In a number of circumstances, all municpal staff have to be trained on a variety of safety topics.  Sometimes annual training is required, or routine training to staff required to display a competancy in a job function.  Members can view a recently posted training chart by visiting www.compalliance.org and clicking on the Municipal Employee Training Requirements Article under the Latest News section.

The focus of our risk management team is to provide high-quality, informative training programs aimed at making member attendees smarter about safety in the workplace.  The OSHA Act of 1970 introduced the country to national safety standards and a major, all-encompasing safety message in their General Duty Clause.  Their General Duty Clause says that employers must furnish its employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to its employees.  The best method to manage and protect employees from these recognized hazards is to provide informative safety training programs specific to their risks (i.e. Lock-out/Tag-out, Personal Protective Equipment, Workplace Violence, and many others).

Not all safety training is created equal.  Just providing the bare minimum to meet current standards is not likely to prevent serious employee injuries.  The goal of your safety training should be to provide exceptional information to staff and spotlight employee safety, incorporating a strong focus on hazards that exist in the workplace and improving employee knowledge to control those hazards.  Training that simply “checks the box” for compliance purposes only, will likely be viewed as bland and basic by staff, they will appear disinterested, fail to gain adequate knowledge of the risks associated with their positions, and is unlikely to provide staff with any safety clarity. 

Cultivating safety at your municipality includes improving safety training programs.  Trainings that focus strongly on employee awareness of hazards, prioritizing controls for those hazards, and explains incident reporting procedures to account for unsafe conditions, will certainly improve the operational safety culture within your organization.  Create learning opportunities your staff can appreciate and goes beyond simply accounting for people in attendance.  The Comp Alliance risk management department focuses our training on staff development, improving their ability to recognize hazards and remove or avoid them.  This, afterall, is the primary focus of a dynamic safety program – improving the safety skills of staff so that workplace injuries do not occur which could negatively impact your work environment.

Contact your Comp Alliance loss control professional or the Director of Loss Control, Robert Blaisdell at (518) 330-8591 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more details on our safety training offerings.