Symbolic nonverbal messages are sent out by teams, departments, offices, plants, divisions and organizations. More obvious for safety professionals, think of the immediate impression you have when you see a clean, well-organized maintenance shop as opposed to a cramped, dirty, messy, unorganized one.
Unfortunately, it’s an all too common occurrence. NIOSH and OSHA reports contain far too many examples of incidents involving multiple fatalities in permit spaces. Over half of them involve “Good Samaritan” individuals who rush to the aid of downed coworkers.
Half
of employers with 1,000 employees or more in the United States had an incident
of workplace violence in 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in a
study conducted for NIOSH.
Some business managers are stuck in the past. They believe we are still in the Industrial Age of top-down control. They do not appreciate nor embrace a paradigm shift in the 21st Century, identified by Peter Drucker as the “Age of the Knowledge Worker.”
Almost 20 years ago we ran on the front cover of ISHN a large, close-up photo of a young boy, hard hat tilted on his head, sitting on a construction pile in Beijing, China. That shot came to mind not long ago while I was skimming through a Blockbuster store, of all places.
One of the reasons I rarely play golf is that, frankly, I’m not very good at it. Those who play regularly improve their skills, and those who don’t…don’t.
Back in the 1920s, people who lived in places like Arizona would often sleep outside on screened-in porches during the summer. On hot nights, they’d hang bed sheets or blankets soaked in water inside the screens.
Safety knives are a necessary tool in almost any industrial workplace. Much has been said about the do’s and don’ts of using safety knives, yet some topics are taken for granted.
RSS