Permit to Work Template: HSE, ISO, OSHA
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What is a Permit to Work?
Permit to Work forms are one of the most important safety and compliance forms to industrial companies. These permits are used all over the world every day for high risk tasks and activities to ensure everyone has taken the correct steps to ensure the task is conducted safely.
Permits to work are usually centred around HSE use cases (health, safety, environment) and typically involve an escalation processes into a supervisor, who can sign to approve the permit to begin work.
It's a simple document but is built to create a powerful and accountable system in the workplace, lessening the risks, and keeping it a top priority to put safety first in every high-risk task.
Compare this smart Permit to Work to manual Word Doc, Excel and PDF versions
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How can a Permit to Work document improve the safety and efficiency in the workplace?
It's not even a question – a simple and straightforward document like a Permit to Work most definitely improves the safety and efficiency of your projects.
Take hot works for example like welding, cutting, or grinding. Hot works put workers and the area at risk, because they pose serious fire and explosion risks. Having a Hot Work Permit makes sure that:
- You're able to identify the fire hazards present and control them (removing flammable materials, or something else).
- You're making sure that the nearby extinguishers, sprinkles, and other suppression equipment are in place, operational, easily accessible, and up-to-date with inspection/maintenance checks.
- You check everyone involved in the task has their PPEs good and ready for use, and that none are broken, damages, or unusable
- You've conducted a full sweep of inspection of the work area to prevent any of the tiniest hints of fire spread.
Take note, you're not just looking at a compliance or administrative paperwork, it's a proactive safety measure that actually protects the lives of your employees. No business wants to put their employees at risk – aside from expensive disputes and hospital care, it's a moral responsibility.
Let your workers know you took the proper measures in assessing the high-risk tasks, developed mitigation strategies to keep everyone safe, and kept everyone aligned on the important precautions.
What is the ideal structure of a Permit to Work Template for HSE etc.?
There isn't a universal structure industries strictly follow, for as long as they comply with the local standards and regulations, then those should be enough guides to create a proper structure that perfectly fits the policies and preferences of a company.
- Basic details and work description: detailed description of the high-risk task, if any equipment or tools are involved, and the area the workers will be working on
- Hazard identification, risk assessment, and control measures section: this is where you'll list all possible hazards, their respective risk severity level, and the control measures
- Approvals and permissions: there should be a set of approvals (like the supervisors, safety officers, and permit issuers involved) and a confirmation that all the safety measures are in place
- Acknowledgement section that indicates all workers involved in the task (or those who will be performing the task) understand and acknowledge the safety procedures. This is typically a sign-off section.
- List of PPEs needed, emergency response plan
- Work completion: a final confirmation that the task is finished (with inspection if necessary) and a sign-off to complete the permit.
What happens when Work Permits are not properly managed?
In construction and other hazardous industries, a permit to work is used to ensure that specific types of work receive the attention and assessment they require to be performed safely. In order to mitigate and reduce the chances of incidents occurring from these types of activity, companies and workers use and approve permits to work.
Not completing and/or storing your permits properly can result in catastrophic consequences, for personnel and for companies.
- You have financial penalties and legal liabilities to face
- Operational shut-downs that affect the project progress, which also affect the employment of your workers
- Whether that be from HSE, OSHA or other safety audits
- Harming the safety of the workers is one of the worst case scenarios
- Your business's reputation is damaged, cutting potential projects in the future
What advances have there been in permitting?
How to manage permit to work forms and processes has come a long way in the last 10 to 20 years. Previously, these permits would have been managed with clipboards and paper forms, walked back to the office and signed off by a supervisor or supervising party before work could even begin.
But today, thanks to technology, these permit to work forms can be managed electronically, meaning much of the process can be automated. Workflow-based tools enable the filling out and submission of a permit to work to trigger a standard set of next steps, including notifying relevant parties that the permit is ready for signoff.
The supervisor can then simply respond to the notification in -real-time (or quickly) to signoff and unblock the permit, meaning work can begin quickly.
These automated processes also provide bulletproof audit trails and version control over permits, meaning tight compliance with HSE, ISO, OSHA and other safety legislation.
If you are still using paper forms and Word or Excel based permits, you can easily upgrade and streamline these document formats without too much hassle using softwares like Sitemate.
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This Permit to Work was generated with Dashpivot
You can easily transition your permits from Word, Excel and PDF for a smart digital format, which will give you tighter control and compliance over your permits:
- Access, edit and complete your permits from any device - mobile, tablet or computer
- Print, download or send your permit to work forms as perfectly formatted PDF documents with your company logo and colour scheme
- Store your permits securely online, where they can be searched and found in seconds via an Excel like register view or timeline view in chronological sequence
- Invite internal and external parties to see, edit and sign off on permit to work forms online
- Easily edit the permit to work template with drag-and-drop to turn it into a general permit to work, or any specific HSE permit
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