Management Commitment - The first VPP tenet

What does VPP Management Commitment look like? Specifics for your operation can be supplied by your company VPP Champion, but in general, management must commit to:

• Providing outstanding safety and health protection to their employees through management systems and employee involvement.
• Achieving and maintaining STAR program requirements and the goals and objectives of the DOE Voluntary Protection Program.
• Correcting in a timely manner all hazards identified through self inspection, employee reports, accident investigations, or any other means with interim protection provided as necessary.
• Protecting from discrimination, any employee performing safety-related duties. Providing the results of self-inspections and accident investigations to its employees upon request.
• Ensuring that safe and healthful working conditions are consistent for all employees even where more than one employer has employees at the same site. This includes general industry sites if contractor employees are regularly intermingled with regular employees. Providing safety and health program information and records to on-site evaluators as requested.
• Integrating safety and health practices into comprehensive management planning.
• Providing visible leadership in implementing the safety and health program.
• Defining line accountability for safety and health through evaluation of supervisors and a system for rewarding good and correcting deficient performance.

  Applicants must have a documented system for holding all line managers and supervisors accountable for safety and health.

  Construction applicants must demonstrate that, at a minimum, the project manager and contractor superintendents are held accountable for safety and health conditions within their areas of responsibility.

• Defining how authority is given to enable assigned safety and health responsibilities to be met.
• Devoting personnel and other resources (equipment, promotions, etc.) to the safety and health program.
• Having a comprehensive review and evaluation performed of the entire safety and health program showing the effectiveness of all areas as listed in the VPP application guidelines.
• For Unionized sites, the authorized collective bargaining agent(s) must sign a statement to the effect they either support the VPP application or that they have no objection to the site participating in VPP.