Author Archives: Dan McLean

About Dan McLean

Dan McLean is a senior content marketing manager for Intelex Technologies in Toronto, specializing in environment, health and safety (EHS) topics. He has been a journalist, market researcher, executive communications specialist and content marketer over his 30-plus year career in information technology.

A Thanksgiving Wish for Greater Employee Wellness and Engagement in EHS

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Workers need to do their part and workplace safety needs to be “owned” by every employee.

We want to send out a big “thank you” on this Canadian Thanksgiving Day to EHS professionals who champion the cause of worker wellness and workplace safety. Every worker who returns home safely at the end of a shift likely have an EHS professional to thank for proper training, regulatory compliance, employee engagement, safety protocols and maintaining a safe workplace.

It’s a tough job, but most safety specialists embrace the challenge. According to the Board of Canadian Registered Safety Professionals – which sets certification standards for safety professionals in that country – 91.6 percent of them report being “satisfied or very satisfied” with their career. They are a passionate and committed group.

What Matters to Safety Professionals?

Recent Intelex research in North America reveals 57 percent of survey respondents say they consider improving the … Read more...

Know the Warning Signs of Workplace Violence and Bullying

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Workplace bullying could be an alert to a potential problem and by acting on it you may avert a workplace violence incident.

Acts of violence in the workplace are the third-leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) reported in 2019 a total of 5,333 workplace injuries, which included 761 cases of intentional injury by another person.

The key to controlling workplace violence, according to Mark Stromme – the EHS senior editor for consultants J.J. Keller & Associates – is identifying and dealing with potential problems before they get out of hand.

“Many threats don’t lead to violence,” he said, during a recent EHS Today webinar on the topic of workplace bullying and violence. “But in almost every incident that does take place, the violent employee did exhibit warning signs and, in some cases, even told … Read more...

Is Your Organization Prepared for an OSHA Inspection?

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OSHA expects to complete approximately 31,400 inspections in 2022, rebounding to pre-pandemic levels.

Will you be ready if an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspector comes calling?

In 2021, OSHA conducted 24,333 inspections, including 13,749 unprogrammed inspections, which were prompted by employee complaints, injuries, fatalities and referrals.

During two years of COVID-19, the U.S. regulatory agency performed fewer inspections and most of these were limited to onsite investigations of fatalities, catastrophic accidents and coronavirus issues. The tide turned and OSHA has significantly stepped-up efforts to hold employers accountable for failures to protect workers and keep them safe.

This year has seen more OSHA visits and greater fines imposed. It was recently reported that OSHA expects to complete approximately 31,400 inspections in 2022, rebounding to pre-pandemic levels. OSHA has increased maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations from $13,653 to $14,502 per violation. The maximum penalty for willful or repeated … Read more...

Safety Management Systems Paint a Bigger EHS Performance Picture

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Integrated safety management systems offer a centralized means of tapping into safety processes, training status, compliance requirements, hazard data and incidents to provide up-to-the-minute, accurate data that identifies important trends and monitors incidents.

A safety management system or SMS is an environmental, health and safety (EHS) software solution that no organization today should be without. 

Safety management software provides organizational tools to develop, plan, measure, analyze, and control the overall safety performance of a company, and guide decision-making for choosing safety assurance activities.

Pressure on companies to maximize productivity and drive revenue in the face of challenging economic headwinds can lead to a tension between business objectives for growth and profitability and the health and safety practitioner’s priority to mitigate risk and keep people safe.

To deliver against this safety objective, safety management software is used to gain greater visibility into incidents and near misses and to shorten the time … Read more...

What is Incident Management in Safety? (And How Does It help Your OSHA Recordkeeping?)

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Incident management, the process of identifying, documenting, responding to and eliminating workplace injuries and illnesses, is a fundamental obligation for many employers. An important aspect of incident management in safety is OSHA recordkeeping and determining what incidents should be tracked and what data needs to be collected and reported to regulators can be confusing.

Say you reported to your manager that you had a headache. You’re not sure what caused it and are given three acetaminophen capsules. Is this considered a first-aid case by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or is it a recordable injury incident that must be tracked? What if you were only given one capsule? Is it still first aid or should it be recorded by your incident management system? 

An employee goes on one day of light duty at work. Is that a recordable? What if it lasts two days? A worker sprains an ankle … Read more...

Look for the “Believers” to Evangelize Your Safety Culture

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Occupational health and safety, like anything, needs to be imbedded into culture and culture is created by the employees.

Safety cultures should be created by employees for each other – empowered, invested and supported by the company – as opposed to forced down and then begrudgingly adopted or ignored.

That’s the view of Neil Bedwell, a council member of Forbes magazine who heads up a consultancy that focuses on culture called Local Industries, based in Atlanta. Employees represent the most important stakeholders in any workplace initiative, he says. In the context of health and safety, guidelines may be created by a small group of senior people, but it is the employees on the floor who bring these principles to life day-by-day and minute-by-minute.

“Occupational health and safety, like anything, needs to be imbedded into culture and culture is created by the employees,” Bedwell says. “Health and safety … Read more...

EHS Software and Technologies Help Businesses Keep Pace with Transforming Work

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The speed and the pace of work is creating new challenges and opportunities for health and safety in the massive volumes of data that can be captured by EHS management systems and how it can be used to improve performance.

Technology is the driving force behind workplace transformations and will be the engine powering environmental health and safety or EHS management to ensure it keeps pace with the ever-changing and increased speed of work.

An article in the Houston Chronicle (CHRON) reports that technology’s impact on work has exponentially increased the rate of production and speed at which business occurs, adding that, “technology in the workplace has helped workers become more efficient than ever before. What used to take hours now can take minutes.”

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Risks Report says 73 percent of executives predict significant industry disruption in the next three years due to technological changes, … Read more...

Is an EHS Management and Sustainability Approach Right for Your Business?

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Sustainability and EHS software may be just the thing your organization needs to help keep your workers safe and protected.

Keeping workers protected and workplaces safe needs the commitment and involvement of all divisions within a business. It also requires an integrated approach to what might be described as EHS&S or environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability. One that includes:

  • Steps to define and prepare for risk,
  • Aligns a stronger and safer workplace culture,
  • Maps EHS and sustainability goals and objectives, and,
  • Consolidates for consistency across all business segments.

An EHS&S information management system may be just the thing your organization needs, but how would you know? Check out this four-phased approach, below, for answers and guidance.

Phase 1. Step Back and Evaluate Your Needs:

Are you only managing permits and compliance deadlines? If so and your business is small, simpler could be better.

“You can have a process … Read more...

EHS ROI Should Be the Endgame, Rather than the Start of Your Investment Pitch

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The inherent value of occupational health and safety (OHS) for every business and organization makes it seem unimaginable that anyone would argue the importance or necessity of protecting workers on the job. 

So why can it be so difficult to obtain additional and necessary investment to improve safety performance? Perhaps the answer lies in the capitalist axiom that business is business, after all, and any investment made must be measured by a resulting payback.  

When it’s necessary to quantify environmental, health and safety (EHS) investment dollar benefits, return on investment (ROI) comes into play. And, while there are many tools and calculators available to help construct an ROI, before spending the time and effort to build a business case, it’s necessary to understand a couple of fundamental things – namely, for whom ROI is important and whether it is truly how a business thinks about safety.  

Related content: The ROI … Read more...

Intelex Research Reveals the Current State of ESG Adoption and Progress in Europe

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Investing in companies that have embraced environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards is booming. Research shows the number of global ESG funds grew to 5,932 as of December 2021, up from 4,153 at the end of 2020 and represents investments valued at more than $2.7 trillion. 

Today’s socially conscious and forward-thinking organizations might want to catch this fast-moving ESG train, and would be wise to explore how environment, health and safety (EHS) and ESG can together drive better business results.   

It’s timely then that the current state of EHS and ESG adoption across Europe should be assessed to better understand how European businesses are progressing. Intelex’s European team undertook a survey of more than 700 EHS and ESG professionals from 10 European countries with respondents representing a wide range of industries – from energy and industrial manufacturing to construction and chemicals. The intent of the research was to better understand how … Read more...