Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Safety is a process, and as such, needs to be managed. This section offers resources to create a viable safety program, sell it to senior management, train supervisors and employees in using it, and then track and report your progress. Look also for ways to advance your own skills in these areas, both for your current job, and those that follow.
As of now, no federal combustible dust rule has been released, and the CSB is taking steps to increase pressure on OSHA to issue one. In 2006, in the wake of a series of deadly major explosions and fires caused by combustible dusts, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued a set of recommendations for […]
Supervisors play a key role in workplace safety. According to Oregon OSHA, supervisors have five main safety responsibilities. It identifies these in its Safety and the Supervisor training instruction guide. Provide safety training. Training must create awareness of safe behavior, teach required skills for working safely, increase knowledge by providing accurate, up-to-dater information about workplace […]
Despite the significant risk of injury or death, construction workers continue to work at heights without fall protection. A recently published study examines the reasons for this and offers solutions that could prevent an accident or save a life. The researchers/authors of Fall Protection in Residential Construction Sites, which appeared in the July issue of […]
What are the most important steps you can take to eliminate injuries and reduce the costs associated with them? Keep reading for one expert’s top 10 workplace safety tips. Kellie Crete manages safety and loss prevention for Gowrie Group (http://www.gowrie.com), a New England-based insurance provider. She says doing these 10 things can help cut losses […]
How well are you communicating safety? Benchmark these recommendations against your performance and share them with frontline supervisors. Establish a clear-cut, easy, nonthreatening method for employees to make safety suggestions or register safety concerns. This could be a dedicated Web page, a traditional suggestion box, or a mail slot in your office. Act promptly on […]
Safety professionals focus on actions like training, recordkeeping, monitoring risks, and preparing budgets. An integral part of every action is communication—what you say and how you say it. Most people believe the goal of communication is to pass on information, but in a workplace setting the purpose is more often to achieve a desired action […]
“Lockout/Tagout” refers to specific practices and procedures to safeguard employees from the unexpected energization or start-up of machinery and equipment, or the release of hazardous energy during service or maintenance activities. Every year, people are killed on the job by activated machinery. Many of those deaths could have been prevented by following lockout/tagout procedures to […]
Yesterday, we featured strategies for investigating workplace accidents. Today, we focus on methods for correcting safety problems before they cause accidents. There are two common procedures for identifying and correcting safety problems: change analysis and job safety analysis (also known as job hazard analysis or safety analysis). Change Analysis To solve a problem using the […]
The holidays are a great time of year, but they can also be stressful for many people. Help your employees enjoy the season with these stressbusting suggestions. Fill in the blank: "It’s the most ____________ time of the year." Did you say "wonderful"? Or did you, like many people during the holidays, answer "stressful"? It’s […]
It’s important to handle requests for reasonable accommodation under ADA the right way. Find out more. An individual’s request for an accommodation does not necessarily mean that the employer is required to provide the accommodation. Instead, a request for reasonable accommodation is the first step in an informal, interactive process between the individual and the […]