Safe Workplace and Safety News

Safety consulting firm BST announced five recommendations for business leaders wishing to protect worker safety and health during the economic downturn. The recommendations, released in a new white paper titled "Leading Safety in a Downturn," outlines the effects of a recession on workplace safety and proposes five actions to address them.

According to the paper, common downturn events, such as job reassignments and layoffs, can increase employee exposure to injury just as many organizations have fewer available resources to manage those risks. According to BST vice president Don Groover, fewer resources are only part of the problem. "A downturn can also have significant cultural implications for a business," he says. "What leaders do now with respect to safety and the business sends a message to employees about what really matters. That message will resonate long after the outside situation improves." In the paper, BST recommends that leaders:

1. OPEN UP AND COMMUNICATE WHY SAFETY MATTERS NOW. Employees anxious about the impact of the economy on the company, and on them personally, can be at increased risk for injury. Leaders need to be out front, demonstrating concern, listening, and taking appropriate actions.

2. CONSIDER THE EFFECTS OF YOUR ACTIONS ON THE CULTURE. How leaders "do the hard stuff" - layoffs, job assignments, budget cuts - will dictate how people engage in safety and the business now and down the road.

3. REFINE YOUR STRATEGY. Oftentimes safety performance can become bogged down, both financially and functionally, by legacy systems that no longer meet the needs of the business. Many companies find that their actual needs dictate an investment in fewer (or different) systems than they have right now.

4. WORK THE FUNDAMENTALS. Survival in a downturn, for any part of the business, is about targeting the core elements that sustain the enterprise. In safety performance, that means protecting the lives and livelihoods of employees. Life-altering injuries and fatalities must be a primary concern.

5. DEMONSTRATE - AND DEVELOP - TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP. Leaders who use a transformational style are more successful at creating the will to go "above and beyond" self-interest and give people a sense of purpose, belonging, and understanding regarding the work they do.

The full paper and recommendations are available at BST’s website: http://www.bstsolutions.com/perspectives.

Labels: safety management, Safety Training, VPP Safety Articles and Papers, workplace safety

In yesterday's edition the New York Daily News reported what they found when they sent a reporter to attend an OSHA 10 safety class. This is a ten hour training class that teaches the basics of construction job safety. Here is what they found as reported in the first paragraphs of the N.Y. Daily News article:

"Safety is for sale in the dimly lit Aqueduct North bar in the far reaches of the Bronx. Last Sunday, a group of hardhats hunkered down for what was supposed to be 10 hours of crucial construction safety training. One of the 'hardhats' was an undercover Daily News reporter. What he found was that the $125 course took just over two hours, factoring in time spent waiting for the instructor to show and breaks to grab a beer."

Read the entire article at the N.Y. Daily News

Labels: Construction Safety, OSHA, Safety Training, VPP Safety Articles and Papers

Yesterday's Boston Globe has an article about a U.S. Postal Facility in Massachusetts that has achieved VPP STAR status. What I like about this article is that it describes how employees were involved to make small changes that had a big impact on safety. It reminded me of Kaizen, which is approach to making improvements that involves continuous improvement through small changes resulting from employee suggestions.

Read the entire Boston Globe article

Labels: VPP Safety Articles and Papers

After applying for the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program, and meeting the requirements, the most common result is for the facility to start at the MERIT level. After a few years of working to improve safety programs and the workplace culture, the facility will then move up to STAR.

A case study of Kuparuk in the January 21, 2007 issue of Petroleum News Magazine shows how a facility can apply to VPP and enter the program with STAR status. The article tells about the following incident:

"When companies apply for the OSHA VPP, 'they are often categorized as merit … and over the next two, three years you work on improving your programs and your culture and then you reach star,' which is the highest rating, said Ken Donajkowski, ConocoPhillips Alaska’s vice president of health, safety and environment.

Kuparuk started out reaching for star rating, and wasn’t afraid to say so, said Donajkowski, relating an incident that occurred when the OSHA reviewers were on their way to Kuparuk for their on-site visit in August. One of them pulled a flyer out of the seat pocket in the charter plane and the flyer said something to the effect of Kuparuk — reaching for star.

The reviewer looked at the ConocoPhillips health, safety and environment director in the seat next to him and said, 'Reaching for star — most companies are glad to get merit and achieve star in a couple of years.'

'We’re that good,' the HSE director responded.

'Well, we’ll just see about that,' the OSHA reviewer said."

Read the complete article to find out what happened.

Labels: VPP, VPP Safety Articles and Papers