In a transformative move for health and safety standards in Nigeria, Chika Samuels, a prominent Occupational Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) expert, has introduced cutting-edge digital innovations designed to streamline and enhance compliance efforts.
Occupational HSE managers, especially those in critical industries like food, shoulder the responsibility of ensuring their organizations adhere to a spectrum of regulations and standards aimed at safeguarding the health and safety of employees, the environment, and the quality of finished products.
Traditionally, safety compliance plans have been static documents collecting dust on shelves. In today’s dynamic environment, marked by the challenges of workforce attrition and the “Great Resignation,” it’s evident that the conventional approach to safety compliance is obsolete, with limited transferability and effectiveness.
To tackle this issue, Chika Samuels Consulting Services now offers innovative compliance tools that empower food handlers and HSE managers to keep abreast of evolving regulations and maintain effective communication within their teams, regardless of staff turnover. These tools grant HSE managers access to potent resources, enabling them to address HSE compliance issues in real time, fostering greater efficiency and transferability of compliance actions and documents..
In a recent press briefing at the Virtual HSE Community Anniversary, Chika Samuels shared remarkable testimonials from her HSE community, highlighting how her tailored digital tools and templates are simplifying the lives of today’s overwhelmed HSE professionals, who must juggle on-site responsibilities with maintaining efficient and auditable safety management records.
With over a decade of HSE experience, Chika Samuels provides innovative consultancy services and educational programs, catering to HSE professionals and food handlers, including chefs, restaurant owners, and food manufacturers. Her primary focus centers on advocating safe work practices and creating user-friendly health and safety protocols for the handling, preparation, and delivery of safe food, including allergen-free options for individuals with food allergies.
Chika emphasizes, “The solution offered by these virtual/tele-educational programs bridges the gap created by traditional practices involving extensive paperwork and spreadsheets, leading to repetitive and mundane tasks, even for reporting minor safety incidents. The virtual group training sessions provide a safe space for HSE professionals to seek tried-and-true solutions to overcome the challenges of working in the food industry.”
The role of a safety manager involves analyzing workplace procedures, materials, machinery, and environmental conditions to assess the risk of injury, occupational illnesses, environmental damage, and property and equipment damage. They are instrumental in developing measures to control workplace hazards and mitigate financial loss to their clients and organizations. Additionally, they play a pivotal role in assessing safety and health plans for new structures and equipment, generating reports, and evaluating workplace health risks, such as air quality, noise, heat, and ergonomics, while devising effective controls.
“The worsening impact of incidents-related stigma, combined with the industry’s tendency to label HSE professionals as incompetent, perpetuates negative stereotypes that hinder progress. It allows myths, flawed safety protocols, and ignorance to persist, leaving those in need of genuine solutions wary, disappointed, and prone to giving up on their professional aspirations too soon.” Chika explained
Read Also: Reps want FG to channel fuel subsidy savings to healthcare
“Effective communication is paramount for the efficient operation of a safety management system. The absence of a live, self-updating dashboard can result in the oversight of critical data that cannot be retrieved from manually entered documents. Our training equips professionals and regulatory agencies to customize digital tools using the latest cloud computing and API development techniques, transforming them into user-friendly safety reporting software that automates daily safety management tasks. To date, we’ve completed over 15,000 HSE training sessions and consultations with a variety of safety specialists.” She further shared.
Chika’s web-based software and mobile applications, endorsed by EPA/OSHA standards, have demonstrated their value in managing work permits, handling incidents, ensuring safety compliance, managing employee risks, and overseeing audits. She emphasizes the critical role of knowledge sharing, stating, “Ignorance thrives where information isn’t readily available. That’s the primary goal of our community group training sessions, where safety professionals can freely seek answers and receive real-time, user-friendly technological solutions for on-site challenges.” Efficiently executing these activities enhances transparency regarding safety concerns in the workplace and aids in generating actionable insights on safety processes.
Oluwasegun Onakan, the Community Digital Training Administrator, offered insights into the importance of choosing the right educational community for HSE specialists in the food industry. He stated, “The path of an up-and-coming HSE professional can be lonely and overwhelming, with challenges such as stress, time management, certification costs, and endless questions about maintaining order on-site. It’s crucial to have an impartial educational support community that comprehensively addresses HSE concerns. The devil lies in the details—the minute HSE details we tend to overlook in manual HSE metric compilation can be the difference between a highly sought-after HSE manager and one barely tolerated at work. You need someone who understands and simplifies training, someone who speaks the language of the shop floor and offers constructive feedback on your site’s HSE metrics.”
Chika Samuels Consulting Training Services is a fervent advocate for sustainable HSE management systems. A bestselling author and host of multiple health-related programs, including the SoPrecious Health Kitchen show, SoPrecious Baby Dust show, and various food safety and public health programs, Chika Samuels Consulting Training Services has published influential articles on the WHO Food Safety Community of Practice and has conducted over 15,000 consultations and appointments to address various HSE and food safety needs.