The Importance of Breaks in Adult Learning
Breaks keep our brains healthy and play a key role in cognitive abilities such as reading comprehension and divergent thinking (the ability to generate and make sense of novel ideas). Breaks play an important role during a training session, particularly in the case of longer sessions. If you are delivering a full day training session, then you should give at least 2 breaks during the training day. The first break could be a coffee break in the morning while the second can be a lunch break in the afternoon. LUNCH BREAK It is essential that the lunch be a light [...]
Workplan: 10 Steps to Creating a Confined Space Entry Program
Working in a confined space is one of the most dangerous of all workplace hazards. In fact, it’s been calculated that working in a confined space is 150 times more dangerous than doing the same job outside of the space. While this Workplan is geared toward compliance remember, compliance is often only the minimum set of requirements for safety. Step 1: Identify Permit-Required Confined Spaces Determine if you have any confined spaces and then classify the spaces as either: Non-permit confined spaces – spaces that don’t contain or potentially contain hazards capable of causing death or serious harm to entrants; or Permit-required confined spaces – spaces that [...]
What is a Safety Culture and Why Do You Need One?
The words “safety culture” gets bandied about a lot. But it’s also a term that nobody quite understands. What exactly is safety culture? And what, if any, impact does it have on a company’s liability risks? What Is Safety Culture? Safety culture is one of those fuzzy concepts like “obscenity” that nobody can precisely define but everybody knows when they see. Safety culture is first and foremost a mindset, a set of shared values and thinking among all the members of an organization. When we say a company has a “good safety culture,” we basically mean that people who work [...]
Safety Attitude: How to Get Workers to Develop One
Getting workers throughout your company to display a “safety attitude” is the key to a safe and healthy work environment. Of course, that’s easy to say. The hard part is to actually cultivate such a safety attitude among your workforce. Here’s what safety trainers can do to achieve this objective. The Challenge of Gaining Buy In The biggest challenge is establishing and maintaining a safety conscious work environment. That’s a tall order and a full-time job. Sure, you might think and eat safety every day; but that’s not enough to get other people in the company to do the same. By definition, [...]
Safety Rewards and Incentives that Result in Safety Improvements
If used correctly, safety rewards and incentives can be very effective. Rewards foster accountability. Rewarding people for positive things gets them to do those things. It’s basic human behavior. People want to get caught doing the right thing. These principles should be used to improve safety performance. Selecting the Right Rewards Different levels of an organization should be rewarded for different things. The reward should be tailored to the result the individual can control. Thus, rewards for people at lower levels should be based primarily on activities rather than organizational results. It’s pointless to base a front-line shift worker’s reward on [...]
When the Worst Happens
You work hard at keeping your team safe from any injuries, let alone a fatality. But when the worst happens, how do you help them to cope? When workers have witnessed or been involved in a horrible scene – a fall from heights or entanglement for example – it can haunt them for years. They need prompt help to prevent short-term shock from turning into chronic post-traumatic stress. Stress can harm a career, relationships as well as mental and physical health. An affected worker needs to talk to someone within a day or two of the tragedy. In this debriefing, [...]
Visitor Safety & Security
Just about every workplace has them — visitors. How can you help them stay safe while they tour your work area? Like most companies, you probably have a well developed workplace safety policy to protect your workers. But does that policy cover contractors, visitors and temporary workers (which, for the sake of simplicity, we’ll refer to collectively as “visitors”) who come to your facilities? Failure to account for visitors is a huge blind spot that can lead not only to injuries but liability. And even if you do have a visitors’ safety policy, you need to ensure that it’s effective. [...]
Workplan: Near Miss Reporting Management
Seventy-five percent of all accidents are preceded by one or more near misses, according to the National Safety Council. So, if you’re trying to reduce the number of injuries and incidents with property damage and other incident-related loss, it makes sense to measure and manage your near misses. Why Near Misses Are So Important It’s been recognized that focusing on minor incidents, including near misses provides the wherewithal to reduce the probability of major incidents. Near misses occur much more frequently than serious incidents. They’re also smaller in scale, simpler to analyze and easier to resolve. Working from the top [...]
Selling Management on the Value of Safety Perception Surveys
As safety budgets shrink, companies are under mounting pressure to ensure that every dollar they spend on safety programs, activities and equipment directly helps to improve safety performance. But in making decisions about how to reduce injuries and illnesses, companies often overlook a crucial factor: the perceptions of their own workers. Studies show that workers’ perceptions of a company’s safety culture and senior management’s commitment to safety have a measurable impact on injury rates. More precisely, the evidence suggests that in companies with low injury rates, a high percentage of workers have a positive perception of management’s commitment to safety; [...]
Personal Liability of CEOs for OSHA Violations
Make sure your CEO understands that he or she can be held personally liable for certain safety violations. Give your CEO this briefing to make your case. OSHA cited two New Jersey corporations for willful violations. One citation carried a $96,300 fine; the other a $196,000 fine. In both cases, OSHA also cited the father-and-son team that owned the corporations. The father was the president and the only officer and director of both corporations. The son, a lawyer whose only clients were the corporations, ran the corporate offices out of his basement. Corporate officers normally aren’t personally liable for the [...]
What to Look for in Better Online Safety Training
HOW DO YOU EVALUATE ONLINE SAFETY TRAINING AND FIND WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOUR BUSINESS? According to Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting curve, we can estimate that employees forget: 50% of what they learn within one hour 80% of what they learn after two days 90% of what they learn after 31 days Download this special report to learn more: What to Look For in Better Online Safety Training
This Date in History Sparked Electrical Safety
As we grow older, there are certain images from childhood that we each remember. One of the images in my memory is the poster of American heroes that graced the wall of Miss Bosco’s first grade classroom. Denizens of the poster included Washington, Jefferson, Lewis and Clark and Lincoln. But the one I most remember was Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in an electric storm. I loved the image but had no idea what Franklin was doing. Later, when I read about Franklin and his work with electricity, I thought the whole kite story was just one of those historical [...]
