Category: Safety

Posted on

Workplace safety and acceptance.

How to Improve the Safety of your Workplace

Acceptance

Knowing where you really stand is the first step to improving the safety of your workplace. All too often, I have seen managers respond to a directive to improve their plant safety by trying to cover up accidents. See my article on How to Improve your Safety Metrics without Improving Plant Safety for examples.

In order to fully understand how to make your plant safer, you need to accurately assess where you currently are in terms of safety compliance. Where are your trouble areas? How well do your policies and procedures reflect current practice? What is the emotional environment of the workplace?

If we fail to accurately assess the current situation, our measurements of improvement will be skewed. Sweeping problems under the rug will not help in finding effective solutions to them.

When beginning a new safety awareness program, we often see a spike in recordable injuries and illnesses. Sometimes this is due to employees learning what to report. Sometimes it is due to improved record keeping. But more often it is due to the safety programs being focused on accidents and injuries. The Law of Attraction teaches us that whatever we focus our attention on, we will get more of. New safety programs often demonstrate this law all too well.

Many managers seem to be afraid to accurately assess their actual workplace safety for fear of having their plant shut down by OSHA. If their plants are really that unsafe, then perhaps the reality of the situation is that the operation would be better off shut down and replaced with a safer one.

Allocating the time and resources to accurately assess a workplace environment requires a high level of commitment. However, you will not be able to effectively improve the work place safety until you accept the reality of the current situation.

Perhaps the reality of your situation is that you already have a very safe plant. Improvements may be hard to make. Compare your self to other operations in similar industries to see how you are actually doing. However, I find the only real and meaningful safety goal is zero accidents and injuries.

If you do find that you are truly the best in your industry as far as safety goes, then please make and effort to share your knowledge with others. Once you can accept where you really are in terms of work place safety, then you will know in what areas to focus your energy for the most effective improvements.

Begin by looking at your OSHA logs. Do they accurately reflect what is going on in the workplace? Or are injuries going unreported? Or do they show only frivolous results while the real problem goes unreported?

What about your safety policies? Do they really tell people how to do their jobs safely? Or do they simply list things they can do to get hurt? Remember that whatever you write down or focus on will expand in the thoughts and minds of the employees. Focusing on teaching them how to do their jobs safely will be much more effective than telling them not to get hurt.

How well do your work instructions reflect current practice? I will never forget a comment I heard during an audit review; “I did not know that was a procedure we were supposed to follow; I thought it was one we wrote just to satisfy [our customer]!”

By allocating the resources to audit your procedures and accepting the results, you will soon know where to focus your energies to create a safer work environment. Too many times I have seen audit reviews treated as punishment rather than a learning exercise. Management often fails to accept the poor results and rather than work to improve, they try to cover up the situation or become defensive.

Accepting bad news may be hard on the ego, but it is a necessary step in improving the process. Only by accurately knowing where you are starting from can you measure your improvement.

If you need help in making a true an accurate assessment of your workplace, you may need to bring in an outside auditor. Just be sure you are committed to accepting the results of the audit. OSHA tends to take a strong stance against employers who fail to correct situations that they have been made aware of.

If you would like me to help you assess your current situation and offer suggestions on how to improve, just contact me by email. Or you can read my other articles to know just what I would be looking for if I visited your facility. I am also available on a very limited basis for phone consultations. Email me for details. Just be prepared to accept the results before you ask for my help.

For more information on applying the principle of acceptance to personal development see these articles:http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/self-discipline-acceptance/
or

Acceptance

Posted on

Safety Slogans for the Workplace

My favorite safety slogan has always been: I expect you to leave here with the same number of fingers and toes that you came in with. I always felt this one gets the point across.

My least favorite safety slogan for the workplace is Safety is our number one priority. If that were the case then why not just pay people to stay home. That would bring workplace injuries to zero in just one day. The company might not stay in business long, but, if workplace safety was the number one priority, that would not matter as long as people were safe.

So lets get real about safety slogans for the workplace. We want slogans that will make people think about safety. We want slogans that let people know we care. We need safety slogans that people will believe.

When attempting to inspire people to work more safely you need to consider both their motivations and yours. Typically as the employer you are interested in workplace safety either due to some government or corporate regulation or because you want to save money on workers comp claims. As an employee, you are interested in doing what is required to keep your job with the least effort that will produce acceptable results.

When choosing as safety slogan for your workplace, you need to consider what is relevant to your hazards. For example a safety slogan for a hospital would be very different from a metal stamping operation. Watch out for pricks. might work well one place and have a totally different meaning in the other.

One difficulty in choosing a good safety slogan for your workplace is making the statement in a positive manner. NPL practitioners have told us for years that the subconscious mind does not hear the negative. So, if our safety slogan is dont hurt your hand, all the subconscious mind hears is hurt your hand.

Also, what ever we think about tends to expand. So if our slogan causes us to think about hand injuries, we will have more hand injuries. We need safety slogans that promote a positive thought process.

Again back to our example of hand injuries. Keep your hands safe for the things you love to do would paint a positive image. Especially if printed over a picture of a cute puppy or something else that is pleasing to touch. In the hospital setting, you could have something like Keep your pricks covered. That might not be the best phrasing but you get the idea.

Coming up with a safety slogan is easy if you just take time to look around your workplace. Look at the behavior that you wish to reinforce. Put that in the slogan. Avoid vague statements like Safety Pays. Get specific in the behavior that you want more of.
Make your workplace safety slogans relevant, funny and to the point. Coming up with new safety topics and slogans does not have to be a chore. Just look around and you will see plenty of things to focus your efforts on. Hey, safety is no accident.

For more workplace safety tips, see http://www.mikestrawbridge.com/workplace-safety-training.shtml

Posted on

Safety Glasses

Safety Glasses

I have always hated wearing Safety Glasses. They are always in the way, they get dirty and I simply can’t see well through them.

However, I do like having my Safety Glasses on when I am doing work that generates debris like when I am running a table saw, or a drill. I can work much faster when I am wearing my Safety Glasses while performing these tasks.

I also love having my Safety Glasses on when I am working under a dirty Jeep. A pair of well fitted, lightweight fashionable safety glasses makes going under the Jeep much more fun and productive.

One safety policy I have always opposed is the blanket Safety Glasses policy. Usually this policy is put into place by people who wear prescription glasses and they don’t see why anyone would be opposed to wearing glasses all the time. They are used to it.

My first thought when I walk into a facility that requires Safety Glasses every where is, “Why do they have so many unprotected hazards that they need Safety Glasses everywhere?”

I always prefer to address hazards at their source. PPE should be the last line of defense against hazards. Especially when it comes to eye protection.

Eyes are easily damaged and you really don’t want to take chances with them. However, by making a blanket policy that you must have Safety Glasses on every where, you dilute the message that there are some places where extra care is needed to protect the eyes.

Whenever possible, guards and shields need to be designed to protect workers form flying debris that might damage the eyes. Also, work instructions and procedures can be modified to reduce the exposure to potential eye damaging projectiles.

For those situations where eye protection increases productivity, safety glasses can be required. Whenever safety glasses are required, there needs to be plenty of conveniently placed glasses cleaning stations. The provided Safety Glasses also need to be both fashionable and comfortable to wear.

When workers see the importance of wearing Safety Glasses and they see how they can feel more comfortable and confident doing their jobs, you won’t have to resort to forcing people to wear safety glasses. People will want to wear their Safety Glasses because it helps them do their jobs.

For more safety related ideas, see: http://www.mikestrawbridge.com/workplace-safety-training.shtml

Posted on

Safety Meeting Topics Free

How to choose a good safety meeting topic

Safety meetings are important to keep employees informed of the latest safety procedures and to keep safe work practices fresh in the minds of all involved.

A good safety meeting topic is relevant, timely and interesting. Take a look at your process. Are there any new work instructions that have been introduced? If so, look into the safety implications of each new work instruction.

Are you having quality issues? Look at the work practices involved and see what the proper and safe way to do the job is. Make this the topic of your next safety meeting.

Don’t focus on specific body parts or injuries unless you want more of these injuries. Focus on safe work practices. For example, if you are having a lot of back injuries, don’t have a safety meeting on back problems. Instead, look at the work practices where people are hurting their backs and instruct people in how to use the lifting equipment properly. Show them the right way to do the job.

Often safety meetings are a good chance to get feedback form the employees. Listen to their safety concerns and suggestions on how to improve the process. Make sure they understand that you care about creating a safe and productive workplace for all involved.

Watch out for safety slogans like “safety is our number one priority.” If that is true, then just pay people to sit at home on the couch. They won’t get hurt that way. Workplace safety is about getting the job done the most safest and most productive manner that produces a quality product.

Choose your safety meeting topics carefully and you will see an increase in the interest level of the participants. Focus on what is important to your operation, not just the flavor of the month.

Click for more workplace safety tips.

[phpbay]safety gear, 10[/phpbay]

Posted on

Fun Workplace Safety Training

Making Workplace Safety Training Fun

Nothing is worse than having to sit through a boring safety training session after you have been working for eight to twelve hours. I always hated those end of shift training meetings that were held just to satisfy some requirement. Even worse were the classes held on what was supposed to be my day off.

Many workplace safety training sessions have more of a tendency to promote workplace violence than they do to inspire workplace safety. Let’s look at ways to improve the classes.

The first step is to understand the audience. These are hard working people who simply want to get the job done with the least effort and return to their homes and families able to enjoy their time off.

They are not generally people looking for ways to get hurt and cost the company money. Unfortunately, many workplace safety training classes I have attended seem to make the assumption that these people all have a death wish and we have to train them not to exercise that desire here at work.

If workers are taught the right way to do their jobs, they will be much safer and more productive at the same time. Use the safety training sessions as a time to show the workers the proper and safest ways to do their work. Don’t focus on the list of things not to do. Focus the training on the ways to do the job safety and correctly.

To add some humorous contrast to the class, do a skit where the job task is done hilariously wrong. Just be sure to follow this up with a skit where the job is done right. Make sure the workers leave with the right way to do the job fresh in their minds.

Conducting a class in this manner will do two important things for employee morale. First, if your skits accurately portray the job, then your employees will begin to believe that you actually understand what they go through on a daily basis. They will begin to trust you more.

Second, by showing them the right way to do the job, they will see that you actually care about their well being and are not simply concerned with how much money they might cost you when they get hurt.

To provide truly effective workplace safety training for your employees, respect their time. It is not enough that they are getting paid to be there, they want to feel that they are actually learning something of value. Make the training meaningful. Make the training relevant. Most of all, make your workplace safety training fun.

For more workplace safety training tips and ideas, see these articles: http://www.mikestrawbridge.com/workplace-safety-training.shtml