Author Archives: Sandy Smith

About Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith, Industry Editor, 3E, is an award-winning newspaper reporter and business-to-business journalist who has spent 20+ years researching and writing about EHS, regulatory compliance, and risk management and networking with EHS professionals. She is passionate about helping to build and maintain safe workplaces and promote workplace cultures that support EHS. She has presented at major conferences and has been interviewed about workplace safety and risk by The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and USA Today. 

6 Feet Apart: How Our Lives and Workplaces Have Changed Post-COVID

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To reduce the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, it is important for all employers to address the specific exposure risks, sources of exposure, routes of transmission, and other unique characteristics of COVID-19.

For the first time since March 14, I ate a meal in a restaurant. Well, not in a restaurant; on a restaurant patio.

While the restaurant looks the same from the outside and the brunch food is familiarly delicious – brioche French toast with local blueberries, ricotta custard and Ohio maple syrup – everything else is different. Masks are required for all employees and customers, who could take them off once seated. Customers are reminded not to “congregate” around other tables or the bar area to observe proper social distancing. Tables are spaced 6-8 feet apart. Menus are paper and are thrown away after use. Tables are disinfected as soon as diners got up to leave.

While I … Read more...

Using Mobility to Increase Business Agility

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With the Intelex mobile application, every employee can report real-time data on incidents where and when they occur, allowing for accelerated response and resolution anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Protecting the health and safety of your employees and ensuring product quality is a 24/7/365 job. Keeping employees productive, aware, and engaged is a critical component of your EHSQ program.

The Intelex Mobile application helps you simplify data intake, and get communications and best practices to the right people at the right time. It also will help you build an engaged workforce for improved EHSQ program adoption.

The fifth webinar in Intelex’s Product Webinar series focuses on Intelex Mobile. The webinar is Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 10 am. The webinar will feature Aaron Davis, Senior Product Marketing Manager, and Dylan Adams, Senior Product Solutions Consultant. They will demonstrate:

  • How mobility can increase efficiency and productivity, and build business agility  
  • How you can
… Read more...

Don’t Let Slips and Falls on Walking Working Surfaces Bring You Down

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Ice and snow, oily surfaces, slick floors, and trip hazards not only can cause slips and falls that injure employees, they can kill employees.

We’ve all taken a fall on ice or a slippery surface. Hopefully, the only thing that got bruised was our ego. That’s not always the case; emergency rooms fill with people suffering from fall injuries that occur on walking and working surfaces when water, oil, ice, and snow make walking surfaces slippery.

Workers are not immune to same-surface slips and falls, and OSHA recognized this fact. That’s why OSHA issued a final rule on Walking-Working Surfaces and Personal Fall Protection Systems. The goal of the rule is to better protect workers in general industry from these hazards by updating and clarifying standards and adding training and inspection requirements.

What’s in the Walking-Working Surfaces Standard?

The rule, which became effective in January 2017, incorporates advances in technology, … Read more...

A Checklist for the 10 Leading Indicators That Predict Employee Safety Engagement

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Employee engagement in safety can be a predictor of employee engagement in the success of the organization as a whole.

Safety, regardless if you are the CEO or the newest hire, is almost always a shared value. Increasing workers’ level of engagement with safety practices is a key goal of many organizations. Employee engagement in safety can be a predictor of employee engagement in the success of the organization as a whole and a leading indicator of a solid safety management system.

From an organizational business perspective, workplace safety is a common area where transformational change is best realized using human capital. Safety is the part of the management system for which it is easiest to gain “buy-in” from workers and the management team.

Increasing engagement—like building culture—is easier said than done. Competing priorities, such as challenging production goals, unforgiving supply chain schedules, and other factors tied directly to the … Read more...

Amy McNaughton: Building Safety Culture, Keeping Communication Open

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The theme for International Women’s Day 2020 is: #EachforEqual. Women are encouraged to “actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”

Amy McNaughton was chosen to be profiled for Intelex Technologies International Women’s Day 2020 coverage because she spent 10 years at the start of her career working on the front lines of occupational safety and health and she brings that knowledge and expertise to her work at Intelex Technologies.

Amy McNaughton has worked at Intelex for just over four years and is a Senior Product Consultant. She not only assists clients but also trains and coaches internal employees on working in the industry.  Amy came to work at Intelex following years of working the field for consulting firms and exploration and operational mining companies. She spent 10 years at the start of her career working on the front line of health and safety … Read more...

Keeping Employees Safe + Sound: Best Practices

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Connecting workers via mobile apps and software systems put safety at their fingertips 

Safe + Sound Week is a nationwide event held each August that recognizes the successes of workplace health and safety programs and offers information and ideas on how to keep America’s workers safe.  

A frontline worker reserves safety data on a tablet while at a construction site

Successful EHS management systems identify, manage and eliminate workplace hazards before they cause injuries and illnesses for employees, damage assets and create environmental issues. August 12-18, 2019 is dedicated to Safe + Sound Week this year. Safe + Sound Week is a good time to get your EHS management system started, energize your existing program and provide a chance to recognize EHS successes. 

14 U.S. Workers Killed Each Day 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of worker deaths and reported injuries in the United States has decreased by more than 60 percent in the past four decades since the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act was passed. However, every year, more than 5,000 … Read more...