National Safety Council Launches Impairment Recognition and Response Training for Supervisors
An online training course offers teaches a comprehensive approach to addressing impairment in the workplace.
- By Shereen Hashem
- Oct 20, 2021
The NSC introduced a new one-hour eLearning course to assist supervisors and safety professionals with the ability to recognize and respond to impairment in the workplace during its 2021 Safety Congress & Expo this week. More than half of employers in an NSC survey said impairment is decreasing the safety of their workforce. According to a press release, impairment from different causes can delay thinking and reaction time, increase workplace injuries and errors, lead to higher workers’ compensation costs and increase absenteeism and distraction at work.
“At least 90% of employers are just as concerned about the effects of chronic stress and mental health disorders as they are about fatigue and chemical substances,” said Jenny Burke, Senior Director, impairment practice. “We’re proud to have developed an all-inclusive training to assist supervisors with the ability to educate and protect their workforce against impairment in a much broader way than ever before.”
The one-hour eLearning course tested with real-world supervisors and safety professionals covers:
• The importance of recognizing and responding to impairment
• Supervisor responsibilities when recognizing impairment
• Common causes of impairment (alcohol, cannabis, fatigue, mental distress and more)
• Common signs and symptoms of impairment
• The NSC original six steps to respond to potential impairment
• Other considerations, including:
• Human Resources involvement
• Prevention
• Laws and regulations
Safety professionals participated in the pilot training to test the course to review the skill building opportunities and user experience. It is highly encouraged for workplaces to have impairment policies in place before promoting supervisors or other staff to take this training. Policies include: reasonable cause/suspicion, a drug-free workplace, fatigue risk management, incident reporting as well as others.
Register for the training here. For more information about addressing impairment in the workplace click here.
About the Author
Shereen Hashem is the Associate Content Editor for Occupational Health & Safety magazine.