June 2008
- 2008 Training, Education & Software Focus
- Get Ready for the New NRRs
- Electrical Safety: What to Wear to Work
- Centralize Your Training System
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Features
By Ken Cybart
Arc flashes occur when electrical current jumps the gap between two or more energized conductors. Depending upon the amount of current, arc temperatures can exceed 35,000 degrees F. That’s why electrical workers must wear fire-resistant (FR) personal protective equipment when working near exposed, energized equipment.
By Don Leick
Weather tools available to emergency responders have improved considerably in recent years. As important as National Weather Service (NWS) watches and warnings are, they’re just the starting point. You can now access everything from detection of likely tornadoes to real-time lightning and frost and icing forecasts.
By James R. White
NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, has become a critical part of the safety equation for companies and individuals who work on or near electrical power systems and their components.
By Elizabeth K. Wilson
When first responders reach the site of an emergency that is in progress, it is often unnerving and unsettling. They must keep their wits about them and perform their duty, all the while focusing on their own personal safety. And in certain situations, first responders must work to deflate rising levels of emotionalism to prevent further incidents.
By Jerry Laws
No matter whether the AED order is large or small, companies taking the plunge to deploy automated external defibrillators at their facilities are doing their homework, comparing available models, and making selections based on performance and reliability. Safety managers who are overseeing two recent deployments say their companies adopted AEDs proactively—not because of a fatality in their ranks—to build on a strong foundation of health and safety at their facilities
By Donald R. Groover, CIH, CSP, Jim Spigener
The safety professional’s primary role is to help the organization move toward an injury-free environment. Transitioning from “technical expert only” to versatile change agent gets us part of the way by helping us reorient ourselves around a bigger-picture view of the causes and influences of safety. This article takes the next step with a look at the heart of the safety professional’s activity in the organization: setting—and keeping— improvement mechanisms in motion.
By Renee S. Bessette, COHC
As we travel during the course of the day,we are often exposed to the sounds of the environment: trucks and buses honking horns, subways screeching around corners, and trains blowing their whistles at crossings. All these modes of transportation use sound to help keep people aware of their presence and safe from it.And while many of these noises are loud, few are hazardous to those in the vicinity.
By Jeffrey R. Fina
Employers intuitively understand the consequences of an unsafe workplace. Our customers tell us there’s a lot at stake: employee injury or fatality, decreased productivity, disappointed customers, loss of profits, and loss of business top a long list.
By Marc Jorrens
Allowing your employees to schedule and receive their training online, from basic to ultra-specific needs, can reduce administrative time, increase timely attendance, and allow instructors visibility into their schedules.
By Roger Pollari
Organizations that care about their employees care about safety and will go to great lengths to communicate the importance of working safely. Regular safety meetings, creative safety contests, safety Web sites, sharing lessons learned—safety communicators tend to use a variety of methods to distribute procedures and critical safety information to help employees plan and perform work.
By Linda J. Sherrard
A quick scan of recent newspaper headlines reveals many employees who may not have received adequate on-the-job safety training: three employees electrocuted in a confined space situation, several dead from an crane collapse, toxic chemical exposures, an excavation cave-in on unprotected employees (with proper shields on site), along with BBP exposures and improper use of PPE.
By Brian Myers
Perhaps the most common criterion for specifying hearing protection devices (HPDs), the NRR or Noise Reduction Rating—that bold number on every box of ear plugs—is about to change, hopefully for the better.
HR practitioners must actively seek key areas for improvement for themselves, their roles, and the company, taking action to defend their role where possible.
By Brad Flipse
What makes the best in HR really the best? Human resources is a complex,multifaceted field that requires professionals to have the ability to juggle priorities and excel at a number of tasks, from the sometimes tedious to the often strategic.
By Marc Barrera
The American Heart Association estimates hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects about 73 million people ages 20 and older. In 2004, according to AHA, high blood pressure was the cause of death for 54,707 people in the United States.
By Kara Sibilia
It’s no secret that the cost to acquire worker’s compensation insurance is extremely expensive in the United States. Every day, employers deal with these rising costs, as well as the related costs of injury pay. Employers spent approximately $50.8 billion in 2003 on wage payments and medical care for workers hurt on the job, according to Liberty Mutual, a leading global insurer.
Departments
By Ronnie Rittenberry
Maybe you’ve seen the T-shirt: “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.” But what about when a bad day of fishing is a bad day of work, as it is for the estimated 38,000 men and women who fish commercially in the United States?
By Robert Pater
Don’t be soft on soft-tissue injuries. These problems—typically, strains and sprains to the back, shoulders, neck, and other areas—plague numerous organizations and, even worse, often escalate as workforces age. Initially, many companies try to injury-proof the workplace, from ergonomic design fixes to job redesign/ rotation.
By Marc Barrera
I don’t know how I lived without the scroll wheel on my computer mouse. In this day and age of never having enough time for anything, this one tiny item allows me to quickly scroll through a document or a Web page at blazing speeds as my ADHD demands more and more.