SAFETY has never been a 9 to 5 proposition. So it's good to see organizations increasingly realize that workers can't switch on safe judgment and actions upon clocking in. But, for the longest time, safety emphasis has almost exclusively been at the work site, exemplified by policies and procedures, observation/monitoring, and ergonomic emphasis on design/redesign/purchase of specific tools.
MORE than ever, construction companies are under pressure to provide both employees and subcontractors with effective safety training. OSHA and many states mandate safety training for employees, and recent laws such as California’s AB 1127 hold contractors responsible for the safety of on-site subcontractors. Adding to the incentive to provide safety training for workers is the realization by most companies that helping to ensure employee safety is simply good business.
THE explosion at BP's Texas City, Texas, refinery that killed 15 contract construction workers and injured 170 other workers in March 2005 is still reverberating. A lawsuit, an investigation by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), a glossy safety report from BP (along with $1.6 billion set aside for claims), and a bill in the Texas Legislature to mandate a state occupational safety and health plan were the first wave.
HERE'S the situation:
Business is tough in today's global marketplace. Everyone is being asked to do more with less. Not just a trend, this seems to be the way of the future.
Safety and risk management professionals have not been insulated from the need to become more efficient. If you are in the safety and risk management field, surely you must agree this is the case.
OH, no—health and safety training again?! In every industry, this is a common response to the announcement of an upcoming session. People absolutely despise safety training because it is the same old, dull, boring, and repetitive material, year after year.
IMAGINE that upper management has charged you with a brand-new assignment, developing an "employee wellness program." This could be a tall order for anyone. There's no standardized program to follow. However, if you are a safety and health professional, you have one trick up your sleeve: your safety and health program.
This article speaks to the training of Industrial Athletes, the men and women whose jobs require strength, agility, and stamina in a variety of industrial sectors. Keeping their bodies healthy and fit is the key to optimal performance and reduced injuries on the job.
REACHING the pinnacle of safety success, world-class performance with a spotless injury log, can seem unattainable for any number of reasons. Deadlines, culture, turnover, upper management support, and resource shortages can set you back. Yet companies and workplaces achieve it again and again through passion, persistence, accountability, and empowerment.
IMAGINE you are ill and make an appointment with your physician. You walk in the door, register with the receptionist, and are escorted to an exam room. A few minutes later, the physician walks in with a syringe filled with medicine. He asks you to roll up your sleeve. As your eyes widen, you exclaim, "You haven't even examined me yet!" As he walks closer with the syringe, he replies, "That's all right. Most of the time, this usually does the trick."
While this scenario may seem ridiculous, how many times have we approached a safety problem with a "syringe" full of training without diagnosing the underlying issue?
AS a safety professional, you have learned how to quickly identify hazardous environments, led the effort in determining the best ways to protect your employees from those hazards, and spent countless hours training those same employees on everything related to safety. It's a safe bet you can probably recite an OSHA standard quicker than a quote from your favorite novel.
You are Fire Capt. Johns. Your fire chief has just radio-relayed your orders. You ascend a ladder to the second floor, carrying more than 50 pounds of equipment with Probational Officer Ed in tow. You break open a locked window and enter a room that feels like a furnace. A smoke-filled, gloomy haze blankets the limited vision your respirator mask allows. How can you hope to locate the victims in this smoke and heat?
Editor's note: The promise of AEDs has not been fully realized for several reasons, most notably our failure to train potential users in a way that truly prepares them for the experience, contends Frank J. Poliafico, RN, director of the Initial Life Support Foundation (www.ilsf.info, 610-566-2824) of Media, Pa.
THE supervisor is on his daily walkthrough inspection when he notices damaged products staged to be shipped that morning. Upon inspection, it is clear a forklift caused the damage. There is no report of damage or injury from the prior shift, and of course the operators on duty have no idea how it happened. Relieved the product was found prior to being shipped, the supervisor separates the damaged product, knowing it will mean short shipping the customer.
ONE of your employees--let's call him Joe Supervisor--is working on a job site where a backhoe is digging the foundation for a new office building. The soil is being loaded into large dump trucks. As you can imagine, the noise level from the backhoe and the trucks is almost deafening. Of course, Joe knows all about the consequence of hearing loss from exposure to noise; that's why he's wearing ear plugs.
IN the quest to treat everybody fairly, quite often we forget the wisdom contained in the expression "different strokes for different folks." Although I have been on site to some 500 workplaces in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Europe, I've never seen more than one set of rules and procedures--or, for that matter, more than one type of safety training program.
MICHAEL White is the executive director responsible for apprenticeship and training for the Ironworkers union. He oversees numerous training programs for their members at a variety of locations, as well as classes at three permanent training centers the union maintains in New Jersey, Missouri, and California.
PROVIDING individual-specific feedback is one of the most inexpensive and powerful tools in the arsenal of a leader. And of all leadership practices, few so perfectly balance a leader's dual tasks of establishing performance expectations and creating the conditions conducive to meeting those expectations.
"THE future is here to stay." In terms of safety training, this saying refers to the use and proliferation of Internet-based courseware for delivering training messages, as well as Internet-based software for administering and managing those messages.