Workplace Safety Culture

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Fall protection has been the number one most frequently cited OSHA violation for several years now, which means, worksites simply are not understanding the need to keep employees upright. Employers continue to take significant unnecessary “risk” when it comes to workplace slips, trips and falls by not taking the appropriate measures in evaluating their worksites. 

On a Tuesday afternoon, you send a maintenance contractor out to a remote station to perform a routine check on some of your equipment. Your contractor drives out to the nearest access road, parks his truck, and walks over to the site. When he gets there, his personal gas monitor alerts him to high levels of dangerous gases...

January of 2018 saw the most recent update to 70E- the workplace electrical safety standard developed by NFPA. While the standard itself is not a law, it was developed at the request of OSHA, which uses much of its language when assessing organizations for compliance. Many organizations also follow 70E to comply with specific OSHA regulations.

Several techniques can help reduce stress and promote relaxation. Listening to soothing, calming music can lift your mood -- and make living with chronic pain more bearable.

Changes to the workplace represent both risks and opportunities for ergonomics. The risk of change is that without considering ergonomics, new challenges can be introduced. For example, a company became aware that product finish problems (scratches) were sometimes occurring but the source was unknown, so a Six Sigma green belt project was initiated.

Today’s workplaces look far different than they have in the past, taking on many shapes, sizes and settings. As a result, more workers from multiple employers are working side-by-side at the same locations, increasing the shared responsibility for worker safety among employers.

Within the next decade approximately 2.7 million “Baby Boomers” (b. 1946-1964) will retire, ensuring tens of thousands of skilled, well-paid positions will become available, all without a ready supply of American workers to fill them. Statistics paint an especially gloomy picture for the manufacturing sector, and a widening of the skills gap as young employees replace old.

Unfortunately, many organizations have a false perception that merely employing someone in a safety capacity is a risk control, as in, “Your Honor, we did our due diligence in safety… see, we hired a Safety Person (points to the ‘Safety Person’).”