A company’s brand name is often its most valuable asset. A brand name takes years to develop but can be irreparably harmed in an instant if a trusted brand causes harm to the consumers who have grown to rely on it.When a company learns that one of its products has caused harm to one or more of its customers, it needs to take swift action to prevent future harm to its consumers and to salvage its brand name.
Although Office Depot’s warehouse facilities have always been in compliance with OSHA standards, by 2004, the company’s managers decided more could be done to lower their accident rate and reverse the company’s steady increase in claims for worker’s compensation and disability insurance.
Some of the nation’s leading experts on all of the facets of Hazard Communication— the regulations, classification schemes, warning labels, material safety data sheets, and authoring systems used for chemicals and mixtures around the world—will be meeting in Arlington, Va., this month.
The last thing most gals think of when they’re getting dressed in the morning is safety.We women, some of us highly influenced by the styles we see in the media, are usually concerned about wearing things that are flattering, fashionable, and fit our unique shape. However, speaking from experience, I believe safety should be the most important “fashion” consideration, especially when dressing for your job.Your safety (and possibly that of others around you) counts on it!
His safety toe work shoes were so caked with layers of sticky, thick, red mud, inside and out, that I doubted he could ever get them clean again. I watched this landscaper cram his feet into wet muddy socks and back into the same mud-caked shoes. It was only 7 a.m. that morning, so it would be a long day with painful results for this worker who was doing tasks ranging from using mowing equipment to setting a retaining wall on a construction site. I asked the job supervisor, who shrugged and answered, “He’s new. He’ll learn.”
Protecting the hearing of employees is extremely important. Although loss of hearing through aging usually follows a normal pattern, when we are exposed to excessive noise, hearing loss can occur prematurely from excessive exposure to noise in the workplace. Hearing loss is a serious hazard that is often painless, progressive, and permanent.
By now you have probably heard of Second Life, the online community created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab in which people, or their animated representatives, can buy virtual “goods” and “land,” construct homes and buildings, conduct business, and essentially live second, imaginary lives—spending, and sometimes making, real money in the process.
In his epic work "The Waste Land" (1922), T.S. Eliot wrote convincingly that “April is the cruellest month,” but a case can be made for September. Throughout American history, all varieties of disasters have transpired in this ninth month of the year—from shipwrecks to plane crashes to terrorist attacks—the aftermath of which have changed the way we live, work, and simply function as a society. Some of these changes have been subtle, others, such as the events of 9/11 seven years ago, drastic.
Any good proof is based upon assumptions. If the assumptions are good, the proof is valid. If the assumptions are bad, then the proof is worthless—or, as writer Angelo Donghia puts it, “Assumption is the mother of screw-up.”
Leadership:Making positive change happen.Working with and through others. Seeing and heading off snags to improvement at the earliest levels.Maintaining focus in times of distraction and turmoil.
Warriors? Safety seems like warriors sometimes, the way we champion causes to reduce employee injuries. We display dogged determination for working in the future, planning long before other teams consider new standards of working safely. Problem solvers? You bet. We work on any problem and try to resolve it, often with no fanfare.
Traditionally, when operators or maintenance personnel required access to the hazardous section of machinery, employee health and safety regulations required removing all energy to that machinery.
It is tempting to think in simple terms about lockout/tagout—that you merely need to power down a machine and put a lock through the deenergized disconnect to achieve safety. The reality is that it’s not that simple, and it’s dangerous to think otherwise.
On Sept. 24, 2007, OSHA issued a Safety and Health Information Bulletin, Respiratory Disease Among Employees in Microwave Popcorn Processing Plants. The purpose was to inform employees and employers about the potential hazards of food flavorings containing diacetyl, recommend exposure controls to reduce exposures to food flavorings containing diacetyl, and inform employers of applicable mandatory OSHA standards.
The wheels are in motion to create the Fifth Edition of the "ILO Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety," with experts all over the world invited to contribute. It will be the first 21st Century edition of a reference dating to the 1930s and the first update since the 1990s' four-volume Fourth Edition, which cost nearly $7 million and took five years to produce.
The use of fire protection technology in “mission critical” facilities has long been a standard for most engineering, IT, and facilities professionals. Whether it be as simple as portable extinguishers or as complex as high sensitivity smoke detection coupled with clean agent suppression systems, some sort of fire protection is a must.
Globalization is good for you! Keep saying it (even if you don’t believe it): It really is good for everyone. Things change, and the individuals and companies that can improve, innovate, and automate will win.