The number of people getting fatally injured has not reduced significantly for a number of years. This plateauing of workplace deaths suggests that the strategies to achieve progress in preventing major accidents are providing diminishing returns. And so calls for new approaches to safety management have grown.
High-reliability organizations create the safest and most effective operations and then constantly re-assess for any possibility of failure before an incident occurs, including near-miss events.
Our safety programs, if they exist at all, tend to focus on participation and completion, rather than transformation. To be fair, the chief obstacle stems from a preponderance of wrong assumptions and dangerous misconceptions. Identifying some of these (see below) may help us as safety professionals become more effective in our mission.
We all love our spreadsheets. For years, EHS professionals have relied almost exclusively on spreadsheets to collect, analyze, and share data. We can do just about anything we want with our spreadsheets, and if you know visual basic, you can really have fun with them.
Being a safety professional is not black and white like what you learned in university, college or what a safety enforcement officer will tell you. It is in fact, different shades of gray. This you will learn as you grow as a safety professional.
What I call a “True North Safety Culture” is the point at which an organization aligns to a value and goal of eliminating risk(s)/injuries within an organization, and also aligns mission/vision statements to this goal.
Tracy Clingingsmith, Safety Manager for Alamo Group in Seguin, Texas, has been named the 2018 Safety Professional of the Year (SPOTY) by J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc. The SPOTY Awards recognize industry professionals who lead unique and effective approaches to their safety programs.
When Clingingsmith started as Safety Manager at Alamo Group in Texas, she changed the culture of how all employees, from the top down, thought about safety.
Distinct Infrastructure Group Inc. (DIG) recently announced that it has been recognized by the Utility Contractors Association of Ontario (UCA) with the Association's 2018 Safety Performance Award.
Each year the UCA recognizes contractors who have demonstrated an exemplary commitment to safety and achieved outstanding safety results. This year DIG was recognized in the category of contractors with over 250,000 hours of work performed.
An electrical contractor recently celebrated reaching the milestone of one-million safe working hours.
Wayland, Michigan-based Windemuller said in August, 2018 it hit the mark without any recordable OSHA injuries as of July. The company’s streak started in May 2016.
Contractors identify strong safety programs as means to address skilled labor scarcity and substance abuse
September 10, 2018
A shortage of skilled workers is the number one factor affecting jobsite safety, according to a report by the Q3 2018 USG Corporation + U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index (Index). The report revealed a widespread concern among commercial construction businesses about anticipated labor shortages over the next three years, with 88 percent of contractors expecting to feel at least a moderate impact from the workforce shortages in the next three years.