Safety Walks

Each year many people get hurt at work from things that can be prevented. Loose wires, wet floors, messy paths and poor chemical storage are all workplace safety risks. These risks are not seen until something goes wrong.

A safety walk is a way to find and get rid of dangers at work. You do this before people get hurt or work has to stop. It’s not a big yearly check. It’s something you do often. It should be part of how your company stays safe and supports a strong safety culture.

What is a Safety Walk?

A safety walk is a planned or unplanned walk through a work area. You observe potential risks, ensure guidelines are being followed, and discuss with workers ways to maintain a safe and healthy workplace.

What is a safety walk? Essentially it is:

• Visual inspection of work areas, equipment and escape routes to identify potential hazards and ensure health and safety.
• Talk with workers about safe ways to work and risks you see, addressing their safety concerns.
• Check that rules, work steps and laws are followed, including safety procedures.
• Documentation of findings for subsequent corrective actions and continuous improvement.

Safety Walk vs Safety Inspection: the Difference

Many people confuse safety walks with formal safety inspections but there are big differences that affect overall safety performance and workplace health. Both are key safety practices but their focus and goals are not the same.

Characteristics	Safety walk	Safety inspection
Frequency	Regularly daily or weekly	Periodically monthly or quarterly
Duration	15-30 minutes	1-4 hours
Formality	Less formal, emphasis on dialogue and good practices	Structured checklist and defined safety procedures
Who conducts it	Supervisors, managers, security teams or safety representatives	Security specialists, auditors
Goal	Proactive detection, stronger culture and continuous improvement	Compliance and thorough risk assessment
Documentation	Brief notes, photos, short corrective actions	Detailed reports, formal CAPA

Safety walks focus on dialogue and real observation while safety inspections emphasize compliance and documentation. Together both methods help identify hazards and strengthen the company’s safety program. Regular and effective safety walks with follow-up corrective actions support continuous improvement and better safety performance.

Benefits of Safety Walk

Hazard Identification: Safety walks find hidden dangers and help identify potential hazards and safety issues. You can spot things like bare wires, wet floors or blocked fire doors. This is done before someone gets hurt. Using checks and lists helps lower risks and keep people safe through better safety measures.

Regulatory Compliance: Safety walks help you follow the safety regulations for your type of work and maintain a high level of health and safety.

Incident Prevention: With safety walks you find and fix dangers fast. This stops people from getting hurt. It also means less lost work time and supports continuous improvement.

Continuous Improvement: Safety walks help you make your safety plans better. You can add new safety procedures from what you learn on the walk and use these lessons to strengthen overall workplace safety.

Key Elements of a Safety Walk

For a safety walk to work well it needs a plan. A safety walk checklist is a must. It helps you watch work, write down what you find and make sure all safety points are covered. Here are the key parts:

Stage	Description
1. Plan the walk	Know the reason for the safety walk (e.g. checking emergency exits, PPE usage). Safety walks find hazards. They help people follow rules and build a safe place to work. Make a checklist so all key areas are checked. Plan safety walks for set times. This keeps them happening. Pick people to lead the safety walks and write down what they find.
2. Conduct the walk	Watch the work area and how people act. On safety walks teach people how to use and get rid of hazardous materials. Make sure they are labeled and stored right. Talk to employees and ask what they worry about with safety. Write down any dangers you find. Use a photo or write about what you see. Watch how work is done. Make sure people follow the safety rules and that work does not slow down. Check the personal protective equipment (PPE). See if it is used the right way and if it’s in good shape.
3. Post-walk actions	Make a report of what you see, the hazards and what to do. For each hazard say who will fix it and when. Check old safety reports to keep getting better and ensure continuous improvement. Recognize employees who work safe to help good work continue. Set deadlines for fixes and make sure they get done through follow-up actions.

The safety walk process ensures that hazards are tracked and fixed, safety managers and team leaders are accountable and the work environment is safe through safety measures and continuous improvement.

Safety Gemba Walk

A safety gemba walk is based on the gemba philosophy of lean manufacturing:

• Go see the work (don’t run things from your office) to understand real workplace safety conditions.
• See how things really are (don’t just read reports).
• Ask questions (don’t think you know it all).
• Learn from the workers (they know their work best).
• Use what you find (a safety gemba walk with no action is a waste).

How to do a safety gemba walk:

Stage	Description
Preparation (5 minutes)	Find a place to walk. Look up recent problems or near-misses there. Make questions that need more than a yes/no answer to address safety concerns and identify potential hazards.
During the walk (20-30 minutes):	1. Observe silently (first 5 minutes): – Just see how people do their jobs. – Do not stop the work. Pay attention to: – How work is really done vs. the official rules. – Quick fixes (they can show a problem). – How people work with tools. 2. Ask open-ended questions “Tell me how you do this job.” “What is hard about this task?” “What would you change to make this safer or easier?” “Have there been any near-misses?” “What stops you from doing it the set way?” 3. Listen actively – Do not cut in. – Ask questions to learn more (“Tell me more”). – Do not get upset if a worker says bad things about the work or the bosses. – Say thanks for being open. This builds employee involvement and a trusting safety culture. 4. Write down what you find – Take photos (if the worker says it is okay). – Write down what workers see and say. – Note both dangers and good ways of doing work to improve workplace safety and eliminate potential hazards.
After the walkthrough (10-15 minutes):	Fix big dangers right away. Make a to-do list for the other things you found. Give out jobs and set due dates. Plan a time to check back and ensure all corrective actions are done.

Differences between safety gemba walk and traditional safety walk:

Aspect	Traditional safety walk	Safety gemba walk
Focus	Identifying violations	Understanding barriers to safe operation and safety issues
Approach	“What are you doing wrong?”	“What is stopping you from working safely?”
Interaction	Inspector → employee (one-way)	Dialogue, training in both directions, encouraging employee interaction
Result	List of violations and corrective actions	Understanding root causes
Culture	Control and compliance	Continuous improvement and engagement

The gemba walk helps managers, safety professionals and workers better understand real work environment conditions and identify hazards that affect safety effectiveness. It supports safety awareness and long-term employee safety.

Digital Tools for Safety Walks

Moving from paper forms to digital tools is a big change. It makes the safety walk process much faster and helps track identified hazards. It also makes it more open and supports a transparent safety culture.

Advantages of digital solutions:

• Get data fast: Mobile apps let you take photos of problems, add notes and save the info to the cloud right away, improving continuous monitoring of safety hazards.
• Alerts and due dates: Systems give tasks to responsible individuals and remind them when corrective actions are due.
• Data and patterns: Digital dashboards let you see stats by area, type of problem, who must fix it and the due date, so safety specialists can track safety outcomes.
• Clear and open: Everyone can see the results, from workers to bosses. This builds a participative safety culture and employee engagement.
• Integration with other systems: New platforms (like EcoOnline, ProcessNavigation, iAuditor, Intelex, Quentic) can connect to other systems. They can link to ERP, health and safety systems and employee training programs.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Mistake 1: Safety Walks as a “Hunt for Rule Breaks”

Problem: The boss walks around thinking, “I will find what you do wrong.”

Consequences:

• People hide problems and safety issues.
• A culture of fear, not a trusting safety culture.
• We miss opportunities to fix the system.

Solution:

• Show the right way: “We look for safety hazards, not for who to blame.”
• Ask “Why is that?” not “Why did you do that?”
• Thank people for sharing problems, increase employee connection.

Mistake 2: Problems are found, but not fixed

Problem: Risks are found, but nothing changes.

Consequences:

• Workers give up: “Why say a thing? They won’t fix it.”
• People are still not safe. This can cause legal problems (you knew of the risk but did not fix it).

Solution:

• Each find needs a task. Give it a person and a due date.
• Show the status of all tasks to all people (on a board or a screen) using software tools.
• Tell the next boss up if a task is late.
• Let teams know when corrective actions are done.

Mistake 3: Safety Walks are only for the safety team

Problem: “That’s the safety team’s job, not mine.”

Consequences:

• Line bosses don’t feel safety is their job.
• Walks don’t happen often enough.
• Safety is seen as an extra cost, not part of the main work.

Solution:

• Make safety walks a real part of each boss’s job.
• Put it in their KPIs and performance reviews.
• Top bosses must lead the way (big bosses and plant heads do walks too), reinforcing the company’s safety culture.

Mistake 4: Too long and too stiff

Problem: A safety walk is a 2-hour big deal with a 10-page safety checklist.

Consequences:

• They don’t happen much. They take too much time.
• The goal is to fill the form, not to really see things.
• People get tired.

Solution:

• Keep walks short (15-30 mins for a safety gemba walk, 45 mins for a full check).
• Use short lists (1-2 pages for a normal walk).
• Do big checks less often (each quarter, long). Do small, quick walks more often (each week, quick).

Mistake 5: Not seeing the good things

Problem: You look only for bad things, not for what is done right.

Consequences:

• The team feels bad.
• You miss the chance to copy the best ways of work.

Solution:

• On each effective safety walk, find and write down one good thing you see.
• Ask: “What works well here for safety?”
• Share the good things: “Area A has a great way of doing safety measures, let’s try it in Area B.”

Mistake 6: Not looking for patterns

Problem: Each safety round is seen as its own thing.

Consequences:

• Big problems for the whole system are missed.
• We just react to things. We don’t plan for the future.
• We miss chances to make big fixes.

Solution:

• Look at all safety rounds each month.
• What kinds of potential hazards keep coming back?
• Which areas have the most problems?
• Are there patterns (time of day, work crew, type of work)?

Use what you learn to start new safety initiatives (e.g., if 40% of finds are about keeping things clean, launch a 5S campaign).

FAQ