It’s no surprise that safety is top of mind for every worker on every job site. And yet, falls from elevation are still happening. In fact, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), falls from elevation continue to be the leading cause of death for construction employees.¹

No fall protection equipment — regardless of how effective — can save an employee who is not properly trained in its use. Therefore, to maintain a safe and productive environment for workers at height, proper fall protection training is the first and most important step in your fall protection program. 

A management system has a place within how we can operate to eliminate variation from the processes that impact the operations of a business. Many commonly known management systems are implemented by EHS and risk management professionals.

One sweeping glance across the Seattle skyline is enough to see that something is happening in the area. If a region’s tower crane count is any indication of economic growth, then companies should pay attention to the Pacific Northwest.

According to OSHA, businesses spend almost $1 billion per week on costs related to occupational injuries and illnesses. “In today's business environment,” according to OSHA, “these costs can be the difference between operating in the black and running in the red.”

We sat down with Matthew Elson, CEO of SHE Softwares to discuss implementing safety programs, and a positive safety culture for workers. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

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.