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Collaborating Authors
ASSE Professional Development Conference and Exposition
Every day, workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities cause immeasurable pain and suffering to employees and their families. Recent estimates indicate that workplace injuries and illnesses cost billions of dollars to our nation's businesses. Implementing effective safety and health programs have proven to be a decisive factor in reducing the extent and severity of work-related injuries and illnesses. According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 4836 workers were killed in 2015 while at work in various industries. The annual total number of worker fatalities in 2015 was the highest since 2008, with an overall fatality rate of 3.38 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers (See charts 1 and 2 below for more details) (BLS, 2016). A recent study conducted by The Liberty Mutual Research Institute reports that costs associated with workplace injuries that cause employees to miss six or more days of work cost U.S. employers $59.9 billion in 2014 (, 2017). These incidents affect both the employees and their employers. Injured employees are affected not only by the physical harm, but also by the psychological and financial burden that they must shoulder long after the incident. In addition to direct costs, businesses also incur a variety of indirect costs when a worker is injured or becomes ill. These costs include wages paid to injured workers; time lost through work stoppages; administrative, such as in filing reports and claims; costs of training replacement employees; time spent by supervisors lost productivity; and replacement costs of damaged materials, machinery and property. Despite the progress that has been made to protect workers, on average 12 workers are killed on the job every day, and nearly four million others suffer a serious injury or illness each year (BLS, 2016). Clearly, more needs to be done to prevent these incidents, most of which are known to be preventable. Implementing an effective safety and health program can help reduce the numbers of these workplace injuries and illnesses, which in turn improves efficiency and productivity. Injury and illness prevention programs are not new, as numerous studies have shown that such programs are effective in transforming workplace safety and health culture, leading to reductions in injuries, illnesses and fatalities; lowering worker's compensation and other costs; improving morale and communication; enhancing image and reputation; and improving processes, products and services.
Introduction The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) is a part of the United States government that works to help employers and employees to reduce injuries, illnesses and deaths that occur on the job. One way OSHA does this is by issuing a list, updated every year, of the top ten standards that are most frequently cited during inspections. OSHA publishes this list so that employers can become aware of what the most common problems seem to be among all types of companies and not just in their own. By looking over the list and comparing it to activities and operations where you work, you can take steps to identify and address hazards that you may not have focused on in the past. Much of the time, safety training is an integral part of ensuring that workers know about the hazards they face and how to protect themselves from injury. Making sure that your safety training classes are interesting and encourage interaction is key to getting trainees to pay attention and remember the information. Interactive safety training activities are a great way to get trainees involved and taking part in their own learning. There are ten different training activities presented here, and each one corresponds to one of the standards on OSHA's Top Ten Citation List. Not every activity will be for every employer but most can be modified to make them easier or more difficult, shorter or longer or more specific to your workplace. The Top Ten Most Frequently Cited OSHA Violations*1926.501 - Fall Protection 1910.1200 - Hazard Communication 1926.451 - Scaffolding 1910.134 - Respiratory Protection 1910.147 - Lockout/Tagout 1910.178 - Powered Industrial Trucks 1926.1053 - Ladders 1910.305 - Electrical, Wiring Methods 1910.212 - Machine Guarding 1910.303 - Electrical, General Requirements *This list and order reflects fiscal year 2015 and is accurate as of 1/5/16. Every year, the order may change slightly but generally, the same ten topic areas are found to be the "top citations." A very brief description of each of these standards follows. For complete details and requirements under the standards, visit OSHA's website at .
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
- Education (1.00)
Introduction CH2M provides comprehensive solutions and services to the energy sector in the Alaska region. With over 1,200 employees, it is a private-sector, direct-hire business group that delivers operations management, project management, design-build construction management, and maintenance services for Alaska's upstream oil and gas industry. In the midst of one of the hardest years the oil industry has seen in the last 20 years, 2016 saw the lowest number of recordable injuries and resulting TRIR the company has ever achieved. This was largely the result of the implementation of a visionary leading indicator program that focused on developing leadership at all levels of the organization. The ROC (Risk Observation Card) Program is an observation program that is unlike traditional observation programs that focus on "safe behaviors;" the ROC program is designed to focus on the identification of at-risk conditions and behaviors and immediately intervening in those unsafe conditions/behaviors. It emphasizes near-miss reporting and leadership engagement with the workforce right where the action is: out in the field. Let's Play Dominoes takes a leadership-focused look at utilizing leading indicators in a proactive approach to risk management and prevention. It utilizes the Domino model as a simple, easy-to-understand incident causation model. It then analyzes people's and organization's safety commitment through the use of the SPIES model, which is a five-level model. Understanding of our moral commitment to safety allows us to explore our behaviors through the use of the accountability ladder. The ladder separates behavior into two main categories: "victim behaviors" and "accountability behaviors," each with four rungs or levels. Lastly, it explores the development and implementation of a leading indicators program to support a data-based focus for a proactive approach to safety.
Overview There are a multitude of reasons why employers create safety and health-related documentation. These include compliance with mandatory paperwork requirements promulgated by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA), which range from injury/illness records, to documentation of training provided to workers (both formal courses and less formal "toolbox talks"), as well as workplace examinations, equipment inspections, industrial hygiene monitoring, and exposure control plans to guard against health hazards associated with asbestos, lead, silica, and other toxic chemicals. There is another universe of documents, which are routinely created and maintained in the course of business voluntarily or as a matter of "best practice." These include: employee handbooks, safety and health audits, safety and health programs, incentive and disciplinary programs, safety and health committee minutes, job hazard analysis (JHA) or other standard operating procedures, job descriptions, safety and health management systems, environmental compliance handbooks, occupational health programs, medical surveillance programs, and internal training materials. Properly prepared and maintained, these documents can be your best line of defense (a shield) against unwarranted citations or other enforcement actions. But failure to invoke legal privilege where available, carelessly written documents, or materials that contain information constituting an admission against interest by the employer or its agents of management, can be used as a sword against you by OSHA and MSHA. Even documents viewed as proactive, or helpful, by an employer can be used to show "employer recognition" of hazardous conditions, which can support enforcement actions under OSHA's General Duty Clause, or to heighten the level of negligence assigned to a citation by showing a pattern or practice of recurring safety and health problems. Documents that can inadvertently be produced voluntarily and then used as the government's "Exhibit A" against the employer include safety and health audits, safety and health committee meeting minutes, near-miss reports, and job hazard analysis forms. Moreover, improper destruction of documents, particularly those where a litigation "hold" has been placed under notice by OSHA or MSHA, can even give rise to criminal prosecution for obstruction of justice or conspiracy!
- Law (1.00)
- Health & Medicine (1.00)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
Introduction Working in urban environments presents a wide variety of hazards and risks for employees and organizations across many industries. Hazards and risks associated with this work are often not anticipated and can be overlooked in the preplanning stages of projects and tasks. The unique, non-traditional hazards of working in urban environments come from many sources, such as homeless encampments, drug labs, criminal activity, human interaction, and animals, just to name a few. Working in urban environments can be complicated by other factors, such as needle-sharing programs, encountering stolen property, working in areas of high crime and gang activity, and the use of temporary workers by employers. Health and safety hazards in urban environments can be encountered by workers on construction sites, city streets and parking lots, vacant or abandoned property, environmental cleanup projects, surveying and locating projects, urban campuses, right-of-ways, in retail operations, in and around commercial establishments and healthcare facilities, and in many other work locations and industries. Traditional risk assessment methods provide a starting point for evaluating potential worker exposures. However, non-traditional health and safety hazards must also be considered to fully assess worker health and safety hazards in urban environments. This paper provides an introduction to the identification of non-traditional health and safety hazards that can arise in urban settings, and suggestions for control methods to protect workers from potential harm. This paper is not a sociopolitical study or statement regarding causes, reasons, or remedies for the hazards and conditions that confront workers in urban environments.
Introduction Accelerated Learning principles, applied to safety training, can be very powerful tools - especially when you consider the topics that safety trainers often try to teach. These are often life and death issues and the absorption and retention of this information is extremely important. Traditional safety training usually involves showing a video and then discussing the video as it relates to the company's program and policies or showing a PowerPoint presentation, reading the slides to the audience and then handing out a quiz. Accelerated learning is much different. Accelerated learning is focused on the results - not the methods. Whatever learning tools work to increase and enhance learning can be called accelerated learning methods. Many safety professionals spend a good amount of their work week training others. Accelerated learning principles can help you spend less time creating training and can help trainees learn faster (and remember more) so accelerated learning applied to safety training can be a win-win situation for everyone. Everything in an accelerated learning class is focused on the results and not the materials or activities themselves. For example, a safety trainer announces that everyone is going to get up play twister with the goal of getting everyone relaxed and "ready to learn". While this might seem like a fun icebreaker, the twister game is fun only for the sake of being fun. None of the information to be covered in this training is being reinforced by this activity. In an accelerated learning class, we might also play games but the games have a different focus - on the results, instead of the activity. For example, a BINGO game could be played where instead of a number and letter being called out, a clue is called. Instead of numbers being on the BINGO card, answers directly related to the training content are listed. This game is still fun, and gets everyone involved, but includes accelerated learning principles, especially when you have small teams work on each BINGO card instead of individually. Learning from peers is a key concept of accelerated learning and is the focus of this paper. Safety training that relies on the group members' participation in team based activities can not only enhance the quality of the training but can increase the amount of training material retained. A sample BINGO game (Exhibit 1) used an Ergonomics Training Class as well as the accompanying clue sheet (Exhibit 2) follows.
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Safety (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > HSSE & Social Responsibility Management > Human resources, competence and training (0.99)
- Data Science & Engineering Analytics > Information Management and Systems > Artificial intelligence (0.69)
Since 2007, ANSI Z359.2 has been a guidance document for employers to establish a fall protection program. Changes to the document in 2017 are intended to make the standard more manageable and complete, hopefully increasing the safety of people who work at height. Developing and implementing a comprehensive fall protection program is the most effective tool for employers to deal with fall hazards. Most organizations that have workers at height have some type of fall protection program already. Usually, equipment has been purchased and training has been conducted. Unfortunately, fall-related accidents continue to hold steady, and in some jurisdictions, increase. Z359.2 is another tool in the battle against fall-related accidents. The purpose of ANSI Z359.2 is to establish criteria and requirements for an employer's fall protection program. Included in Z359.2 are the policies, duties and responsibilities, training, survey and identification of fall hazards, fall protection procedures, eliminating or controlling fall hazards, rescue procedures, program implementation, incident investigation, and evaluating program effectiveness. If you have already been using or are familiar with Z359.2, the changes in the 2017 version are subtle. The greatest change is a reorganization of the content so the document is more user-friendly and assembled in a logical order. Another change is the inclusion of clear and succinct language as to what an employer must do to be in compliance with the standard. Training requirements have been reorganized to be clear, but also flexible to the needs of employers. The standard has been written to reflect the order of steps that an employer uses to establish a fall protection program. This illustration is representative of how the standard is organized.
Introduction Over the last several years, organizations across the world have made great strides in safety performance. Technological advancements, holistic safety systems, and better understanding of the elements of exposure reduction have all contributed to a safer work environment. Even with all the progress, people continue to get hurt, and rates for the most serious injuries have yet to decline at the same pace as other injury types. Some organizations are taking a proactive approach to addressing hazards. For many, their performance is good, sometimes very good. But they know to become great, they must take safety to the next level. It is not enough to establish rules and procedures around safe performance. Even when employees follow them to the letter, there are situations that can't be covered in advance, leaving individuals exposed to hazards that can arise unexpectedly. This paper outlines a mechanism for developing a robust hazard recognition ability into the organization's toolkit. The process uses real-life, exposure-based scenarios to assist supervisors and their teams in recognizing when exposure is changing and enhancing their response to it as it arises. The process builds upon practical exposure-reduction practices to enhance teamwork and communications. Learning Through Scenarios There is a wealth of educational and organizational research that shows learning through scenarios or stories can have a profound and long-term impact on people. This is especially true when the learning is centered on things that are significant to learners and administered by people that have the most experience with the work. Enhancing hazard recognition and response using exposure-based scenarios allows supervisors and workers to train in risk mitigation practices that directly address the hazards they face every day.
Introduction In the cumulative experience of author is that, to date, the majority of U.S. employers still struggle to maintain a consistently effective lockout/tagout protocol with their workers, contractors, and vendors. Driven by the limited guidance provided by regulatory requirements only, compliance is very difficult to routinely achieve. The latest version of the ANSI/ASSE Control of Hazardous Energy Lockout, Tagout and Alternative Methods standard, released in December 2016, is a well-resourced and progressive look at how to include well-described energy control practices into daily productive operations. This appeals to employers who seek to understand how to improve their energy-related protective practices and resonates with people whose work exposes them to the hazards of sudden machine startup. The newly revised Z244 standard speaks to these needs by offering comprehensive information on the latest methodology and how to accomplish across all industries, and especially in your workplace. How the New ANSI Z244 Standard influences the Practice of Lockout/Tagout and Alternative Methods Certainly, the methods of protecting workers against the sudden startup of machinery have evolved greatly over the years. The most often referenced source of lockout/tagout information is OSHA's 29 CFR1910.147 regulation, which came out in 1989. It was based heavily on ANSI's original Z244.1 Lockout Standard first published in 1982. We have come a long way since then in terms of technology and new methods, but there certainly is a long way to go. Each year OSHA publishes its Top 10 Most Cited Violations and again, for Fiscal 2016, lockout was ranked fifth (with very similar outcomes as 2015) in terms of the particular rules that were cited and value of the citations issued. Heightened self-reporting requirements for serious injuries and fatalities are bringing more violations to OSHA's attention, and it seems that many U.S. employers are coming to an understanding that these types of accidents continue to occur with significant frequency and often with great severity.
Introduction The safety of employees and the general public should always be the highest priority of any organization. Workplace injuries, illnesses and auto crashes take a tremendous toll on any organization. The prevention of injuries and auto accidents has been an ongoing battle for years. Auto crashes still account for the highest number of severe injuries and fatalities in the workplace and are the leading cause of death from the ages of 5 to 35 throughout the world. Without a comprehensive safety process, injuries, accidents, and fatality trends will go up and down over time with no consistent improvement or solution. According to the "2015 Motor Vehicle Crashes: Overview," published by the U.S. Department of Transportation, our nation lost 35,092 people in crashes on U.S. roadways during 2015, an increase from 32,744 in 2014. The 7.2 percent increase is the largest percentage increase in nearly 50 years. The estimated number of people injured on U.S. roads increased in 2015 to 2.44 million injured people. The estimated number of police-reported crashes increased by 3.8 percent, from 6.0 to 6.3 million. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2015," it was noted that roadway incident fatalities were up nine percent from 2014 totals, accounting for over one quarter of the fatal occupational injuries in 2015. Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers recorded the most of any occupation. Many consider auto accidents to be based on chance or bad luck. Nothing is further from the truth. Accidents can be reduced by the elimination of unsafe driving behaviors, and fatal accidents can only be decreased by the reduction of all accidents. While changing these long-entrenched mindsets is not easy, business results will be sustainable once a methods-based safety culture is implemented.
- Transportation > Ground > Road (1.00)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)