Chronic pain we know about too well. The opioid onslaught has taught us that. The pressure to work through pain is real, particularly in industries with a macho ethos such as construction and oil and gas. But step back and look at a larger picture — chronic diseases — and the untold millions of adults who work through a chronic illness.

What does it mean to actively care for people’s safety? Is this the mission of behavior-based safety (BBS)? Let’s understand the difference between “caring” and “acting.” No one wants to see an individual get injured on the job. This is caring. Yet, many workers admit they do not act on their caring by providing behavioral feedback.

Rules are so easy to make that safety offices are often accused of being a “Rule Mill” because they continuously produce their rule-of-the month. Why do we create so many rules? One particular cog in our mill that causes us to create rules is incidents. When we suffer an incident, we want to throw every tool in the arsenal to keep it from happening again.

Ever feel a little guilty about taking the time for that pick-up game of basketball or a weeknight watercolor class? You shouldn’t—it’s good for you and your job. That’s what doctoral candidate Victoria Daniel and Dr. Yujie Zhan of Wilfrid Laurier University discovered in their research titled “Wearing Many Hats: How Employee Personal Life Engagement Enriches Creativity at Work,” presented in April at the 2018 Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Chicago, Illinois.

Corrie discusses Safety I, Safety II, and Safety III. Safety I is the current practice—injury prevention. It is slowly evolving into Safety II, which emphasizes human performance and systems controls. Safety III holds out the promise of reinventing the profession.

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.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has announced the recipients of this year’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Honors (PHWH), given to organizations from across the United States and Canada that have created a work environment where employees and business thrive.

As more organizations offer increasingly comprehensive programs for workplace safety and health, researchers and organizations alike look for the best examples and tools to measure their effectiveness. With so many programs available, how do organizations know which one is best?

Workplace wellness programs often offer an array of health-improvement activities, including courses to quit smoking, exercise or physical fitness classes, nutrition or stress management education, and ergonomic testing of work conditions and equipment. In 2017, 39% of private industry workers and 63% of state and local government workers had access to such programs, but access doesn't always mean that workers use these programs.