Your brain is constantly processing ideas, thoughts, plans, experiences, and memories. Coupled with the fast pace of daily life, your mind can seem too full. Do you remember to leave space for safety thoughts to prevent accidents during the hurry of the moment? How about taking a “Safety Pause?” Use that second of time to
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We’ve all read self-help books that describe how to deal with difficult people and handle difficult situations in the workplace. In this article, I’d like to examine some of the more difficult people I’ve encountered during environmental, health, and safety (EHS) audits and discuss options for handling these folks. Type One: The Avoider Mantra:
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The environmental, health, safety, and sustainability (EHS&S) profession is in the doldrums. Just when we thought we’d survived the recession and sustainability could be embraced, we’re back in the world of cuts and delays. It feels like a return to the 1980s or early 1990s, when a CEO would tell a corporate environmental officer: “I
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Take a break and watch this short video of a truck carrying welding gases, oxygen and acetylene, that crashes on the highway. http://www.youtube.com/embed/FG1LGKieTxY?rel=0 Photograph: Gas Bottles by Esra Su, Frankfurt, Germany. Return to the EHS Journal Home Page
Since the advent of the Safety function, safety professionals have been borrowing tools from other disciplines and building practices based on data gleaned from the earliest research in industrial psychology. For some, these most basic practices and methods are cherished and to suggest that any change to these is tantamount to heresy. For others,
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Americans strike underground utilities about once per minute on average according to a report last year by the Common Ground Alliance, a group of utilities, fire marshals, and others interested parties focuses on protecting underground utility lines and the safety of people who dig near them. Perhaps you heard one of these stories: In February
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People, like machinery, tend to break down in extreme conditions. As temperatures rise, productivity falls, safety becomes questionable and comfort is no longer. Heat stress is defined as a group of conditions that result from being overly exposed to heat or overexertion in excessive ambient temperatures, a common occurrence in industrial spaces during the summer
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Most organizations that deal with hazardous operations have rules, procedures, and training in place as part of their efforts to minimize workplace risk. However, experience shows that rules and procedures are not enough to achieve changes in behavior among the employees and subcontractors whose lives and health are most at risk when things go wrong.
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Take a break and watch this short video of forklift mishaps. The music makes it sounds as if these accidents are supposed to be funny, but we all know how tragic they could have been.
Yellow Cards. HazObs, HazIDs, STOPTM cards. These are names for programs that are meant to engage employees to improve safety performance. The ‘cards’ typically have written guidance for employees to use to target safety observations. The intent of these cards is to have employees focus on potential hazards in their workplace and identify those hazards.
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