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Women in construction should take advantage of available resources

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 11:34:00 -0500

Women have made amazing strides in many fields and industries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Unfortunately, there are many others in which it remains a big challenge for a woman to rise to the top — or even, in some cases, to enter the industry at all.

Complacency depends on what you’re doing

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0400

For all the COVID-19 safety guidelines circulating, some hundreds of pages long, basic best practices are straightforward and known by most Americans. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, recently recounted them in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Changing safety culture via VPP: How one roofing company achieved OSHA recognition

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Evans Roofing Company, Inc., with its subsidiaries Charles F. Evans (union) and CFE, Inc. (non-union), is a building envelope contractor licensed in 46 states. Charles F. Evans and CFE, Inc. are the only commercial roofing and wall panel contractors to hold the VPP STAR mobile work force designation.

Return to work safely

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0400

The topic of “return to work” is certainly front and center. While many organizations have continued to operate during the COVID-19 situation under the definition of essential businesses, there are many who have not — especially consumer facing businesses such as retail businesses, bars and restaurants.

5 business lessons learned amid COVID-19

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0400

If there’s one thing the global business community has learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ebb, flow and unfold on the daily, wreaking having on bottom lines in every corner of the world in its wake, it’s the outright imperative for companies to be agile “from top to bottom.”

Stop safety dissidents: Authority figures often ignore workforce issues

Wed, 13 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Since health and safety initiatives and overall health and safety commentary seem to be focused towards frontline workers, Positional Leaders appear to be getting a free pass on the safety train that already left the station a long, long time ago.

Does punishment work? Absolutely, but probably not

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Invited to do a workshop for a very large international corporation, I went out to a dinner where I sat next to the “grand poohbah” vice president in charge of all things quality and safety. He leaned over to me and said:

Tools for serious injury & fatality prevention

Mon, 02 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0500

In the last decade or so many organizations have been placing more of a focus on Serious Injury and Fatality prevention (SIF). The theory behind the traditional “Safety Pyramid” (or Heinrich Safety Triangle) says if we reduce incidents at the “base” of the pyramid, it follows we will reduce incidents at the top of the pyramid at an approximately proportional rate.

5 strategies & tactics to minimize errors

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Individual oversights and errors can and will eventually lead to unwanted consequences. However, we need multiple checks and balances that limit fallout and the continuance of loss, or possibly, an egregious event.

Why is there a shortage of skilled labor?

jokello@davidson.edu (Dr. John Kello) — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 -0400

Whether in mining, construction, fabrication and assembly, equipment installation and repair, or other industries, there is a shortage of skilled tradesmen/ technicians to do essential work.

What happens in the boardroom affects the front line

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 00:00:00 -0400

The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.

Leadership gaps & situational awareness

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 00:00:00 -0400

The knowledge gap within utilities, construction, and related industries is more of a growing concern than ever — especially when it comes to serious injuries and exposures.

How do you assess risks? It hinges on leadership & culture

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0400

Not many people walk around throughout their day with a risk assessment in hand. We should, however, always have an informal risk assessment tool in our mind that allows us to perform at least a cursory assessment until we can dig deeper or in a more formal way.

Personality tendencies impact performance

Fri, 21 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0400

It wasn’t until recently that we started understanding that people with different personalities tend to naturally pay more attention to safety attributes like work environment, people, equipment, processes, etc. based on their personality tendencies.

Arc blasts can ruin hearing

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0400

Hearing loss isn’t the first injury that comes to mind when an arc fault occurs. The light and heat emitted by the massive electrical explosion – the arc flash – can cause life-threatening and life-altering burns to the skin, compression injuries and loss of limbs if workers are left unprotected.

Don’t judge behavior without knowing the situation it occurs in

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Behavior is not right or wrong, good or bad. It just is. It is neutral. Approach behaviors with the dispassionate, objective view of a scientist. Not with emotions.

Workers help craft the best safety rules

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 00:00:00 -0500

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.

Want better safety outcomes? Try servant leadership!

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 00:00:00 -0500

Twenty-five years ago, as a young safety professional, I struggled to find a set of leadership practices I could call my own. In 1996, I wrote about many of the leadership practices I was already using but found more clearly established in Servant Leadership (Sarkus, 1996).

‘Safety culture’ is a messy concept

Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:00:00 -0400

The term “Safety culture” has become like the term “engagement” in popular management writings. There is no common agreement on the term. We are left with (mis)interpretations of terms like “safety culture,” which lead to haphazard attempts at changing organizations toward improvement.

Safety directions need to be explicit

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400

With more experience traveling the real world seeing safety programs in action (or inaction) I realized that words matter. They not only communicate, but they can shape the very approach you take to your safety programming. They can get you stuck or they can liberate your safety culture.

A story of team defense: What is resilience leadership?

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0400

The hard part is getting teams to buy into the team vision to play selfless and trust that if they focus on all the intangibles, the scoring will come and at the end of the game the scoreboard will reflect their efforts.

Leave a legacy of helping others

Tue, 01 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400

For the past 30 years, I’ve been driven to be the best and do the best I can – in nearly any context, personally and professionally. Along the way, I’ve discovered various dimensions of growth that have helped me succeed. I want to pass them on, and share them, so they might help you.

Positive & negative workplace safety vibes

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:00:00 -0400

How do people get to a point where they fear safety? How can something like a checklist or an SOP or a safety manager create fear? Our body is equipped with automatic protective wiring that reacts to scary stimuli with a fear response.

Provide employees with the tools to support your expectations

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 -0500

Expectations drive both the leader and follower. Various forms of research suggest that when leaders have higher types of expectations for their followers, those followers often live up to the expectations.

What legacy are you leaving?

safety@safetyperformance.com (E. Scott Geller) — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 00:00:00 -0500

We live, we love, we learn, and we leave a legacy.” This profound quotation from Stephen R. Covey has fueled my motivation to keep teaching at Virginia Tech well beyond retirement age and a comfortable pension.

Leaders: A purposeful presence can open up safety dialog

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

When I coach leaders, I often hear that the image of wallowing stays with them long after I’m gone - even when they don’t feel like wallowing! Ultimately, the thought of wallowing moves their thoughts to intentions, and then, purposeful actions.

Focus on organizational and human factors impacting risk

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 00:00:00 -0500

Changes in safety and health approaches are needed both in and outside of government. Many established beliefs and assumptions concerning government operations currently are being re-evaluated and questioned. This reset presents an opportunity.

Fishing for faults and overlooking safe behaviors along the way

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 00:00:00 -0400

The manager had gone on a fishing trip for at-risk behavior. And he “hooked” one of his crew doing “wrong.” He found what he was looking for – at-risk behavior -- and administered discipline, based on this single data point.

Re-Imagining OSHA in the Trump era

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 -0400

OSHA’s regs and enforcement have framed health and safety work for decades. If OSHA reduces its regulatory activity (delaying or reversing current regulations) and moves toward technical assistance, what might the impact be?

The OSHA blaming and shaming game

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:00:00 -0400

With the virtual halt to federal OSHA press releases on enforcement cases, ISHN asked veteran agency observers and safety and health experts for their input on whether the practice pays off in changing corporate misbehavior.