A safety audit is a detailed review of the risks and hazards in your processes and work environment. It helps you create a safer, healthier work environment for your employees by identifying risks, understanding their impact, planning to control or eliminate them, and training employees on how to navigate them safely.
There isn’t a set amount of time. It depends on the complexity of your business processes, the number of hazards, and how complete your current safety plans, documentation, and training are.
Generally, inspections are focused on making sure safety measures are in place and being followed. Audits also accomplish that, but they go one step further to examine the safety measures themselves and determine whether anything is missing or needs to be improved.