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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On Jan. 16, 2002, two workers were killed and eight others were injured when they inhaled hydrogen sulfide gas leaked from an underground process sewer at the Georgia-Pacific Naheola mill in Pennington, Ala. Among the injured were workers who attempted to assist their colleagues from the deadly cloud. The gas was the product of a sudden, uncontrolled chemical reaction taking place in the sewer as the men worked above.
The writing of this article follows on the heels of a meeting between the author and the chief deputy attorney general of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The purpose of that meeting was to investigate and discuss the circumstances of a fatal Pennsylvania mining accident.
Working a summer job many years ago on a crew of a county road repair department was my first full-time outdoor employment. Flagging for our paving machines and dump trucks that first day was a brutal education, but not because of the pace, the dust, the heat, or the toil. It was rough because I hadn’t known to bring my own jug of water. On Day Two and every work day thereafter, I was much better prepared.