Tag Archives: ehs incident reporting software

Agile Learning: How Is Information Sharing Changing for the Better?

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Health and Safety practitioners are recognizing the value of micro-learning recently, which is sending messaging and content in brief, bite-size chunks to the workforce to bring them up to speed on any topic.
Health and Safety practitioners are recognizing the value of micro-learning recently, which is sending messaging and content in brief, bite-size chunks to the workforce to bring them up to speed on any topic.

Toby South, product solutions consultant at Intelex and HSM Live presenter, explains the value of agile knowledge sharing through micro-learning.

Last week, during HSM Live’s Digital Conference, Intelex’s Toby South, a product solutions consultant, presented on the topic of agile learning. The topic, arguably more pertinent today than ever before, initiated some interesting discussion around how we best learn in a world of ‘information overload,’ how organisations can streamline communication and training to optimise their workforce’s retention of knowledge and how the future of information dissemination is likely to change in the future.

In this Q&A session, Toby touches upon these areas and digs a little deeper into his role of a product solutions consultant who is … Read more...

Falls Top the OSHA Top 10 List of Safety Violations for More than a Decade

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OSHA revealed the Top 10 safety violations for fiscal year 2021 at the NSC Safety Congress & Expo and once again, falls top the list.
OSHA revealed the Top 10 safety violations for fiscal year 2021 at the NSC Safety
Congress & Expo and once again, falls top the list.

One of the most highly anticipated events at every NSC Safety Congress & Expo is the announcement of the list of top safety violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). On Oct. 12, OSHA announced its preliminary Top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety standards for fiscal year 2021 and for the 11th year, falls topped the list.

Kevin Druley, the associate editor of Safety+Health magazine, introduced Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, who presented the list virtually during the 2021 NSC Safety Congress & Expo, the world’s largest annual gathering of safety professionals.

Scott Gaddis, Vice President, Global Practice Leader – Safety and Health at Intelex Technologies Inc., joins David Wagner from Industrial Scientific to discuss “Why … Read more...

The Principle-Based Safety Culture

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Creating a workplace that is striving to achieve and sustain safety performance success begins with one critical question: Is safety your organization’s principal value?

Achieving safety and health success is measured in various ways and with an ample set of metrics that quantify and qualify success. However, I would venture a guess that most organizations still look to a specific number of measures to define overall success: Metrics that measure loss, the time between failure, the duration of loss and the severity of the loss.

The reality is, most organizations still want to understand that loss and its severity are improving with time, and that’s okay. Yes, I said it: it’s okay.

Creating a workplace that is striving to achieve and sustain safety performance success begins with one critical question: Is safety a core value or better yet, is it the organization’s principal value? To define it in terms of … Read more...

Do You Believe that Data Accuracy Is ‘the Golden Ticket’ To Risk Reduction?

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Many companies implement the newest software and technology with the idea that once the new tech is up and running, there will be gold rush of data to influence the EHS programs, ie., the “golden ticket.” But is this really the case?

In a recent poll we conducted of environmental, health and safety (EHS) professionals, 39% of respondents indicated that data accuracy was the biggest data quality huddle that they faced.

So, what is data accuracy? Data accuracy is one of the “six dimensions” of data quality and it can be defined as the “degree to which the data correctly describes the ‘real world’ objects being described.” This definition makes it easy to see how poor data accuracy could greatly impact your ability to use your data effectively.

As EHS technologies have become more prevalent in the EHS landscape, so has the “golden ticket fallacy.” Many companies implement the … Read more...

The Human Tragedy of the Cost of Poor Quality

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From vaccine production errors to technology failures during a season of dangerous forest fires, quality management is frequently a factor that determines whether first responders can help people in need using reliable, resilient equipment and resources.

The world is full of regular reminders that risk is hiding everywhere and that failure to follow quality principles can produce errors that aggregate into disasters. From vaccine production errors to technology failures during a season of dangerous forest fires, quality management is frequently a factor that determines whether first responders can help people in need using reliable, resilient equipment and resources.

When we think about the cost of poor quality (COPQ), we usually think about things like rework, brand damage, lost sales opportunities or lost customer loyalty. Sometimes, however, the cost is much more severe. In some cases, a grieving family is left to mourn the loss of a loved one, while the … Read more...

CDC: Largest Annual Increase in Drug Overdoses in 50 Years

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Provisional drug overdose data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that the United States experienced the largest annual increase in deaths reported from overdoses in at least 50 years. If you think workplaces are not impacted by this staggering increase, think again.

Nearly 21 million Americans are living with a substance use disorder (SUD), and 70 percent of them are employed, according to the National Safety Council (NSC). It’s likely that almost every workplace employees one or more employees who are living with a SUD or who are in recovery.

Employers spend an average of $8,817 annually on each employee with an untreated SUD, according to research gathered by NSC and NORC at the University of Chicago. However, each employee who successfully recovers from an SUD can save their employer as much as $8,500, due to utilizing less health care services, missing fewer workdays related … Read more...

Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset: Best Practices for Reducing Worker Injuries and Illnesses

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Training is one thing employers can do to protect their most valuable asset – their workers – and ensure these individuals return home every day just as healthy as when they arrived.

When researchers in Ireland set out to document the experiences of workers across a variety of industries who had suffered on-the-job injuries, they ended up with 20 different stories. Their final report included first-person descriptions of what happened before, during, and after their subjects’ individual incidents.

Each is a fascinating case study of not only their personal traumas, but also the overall financial toll the incidents took on themselves and their employers.

One manufacturing plant worker, for instance, was clearing a blockage in a machine when another employee switched it on, causing two large blades to activate. The affected worker, Hugh O’Carroll, lost the tops of his index and middle finger on his left hand as a result.… Read more...

6 Tips to Help Avoid Workplace Injuries

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If you want to decrease workplace injuries, ensure everyone has the proper safety training relating to the hazards of the job.

Accidents are unplanned occurrences that result in injuries, illness, death and loss of property and/or production. By managing risk and implementing a safety management system, injuries, illnesses and workplace incidents can be reduced and even eliminated.

  1. Know the Hazards
  • Be aware of surroundings.  Look around and identify workplace hazards that could cause harm.
  • Implement strategies to reduce or eliminate hazards.
  • Report unsafe areas or practices.
  • Dress for the weather.
  • Use the EHS job hazard analysis tools to identify hazards associated with job types.

2. Create a Safe Work Area

  • Keep an orderly workplace.  Poor housekeeping can cause serious health and safety hazards. The layout of the workplace should have adequate egress routes and be free of debris. 
  • Inspect vehicles before and after use. DRIVE SAFELY.
  • Continually cultivate a
… Read more...

10 Tips to Prevent Workplace Injuries

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Each day, millions of workers head to manufacturing facilities, oil and gas refineries, mines, shipyards, airlines, food distribution hubs, farms, stores and more. Thousands of workers won’t return home from work.

Over 1 million work-related deaths occur annually, according to estimates from the International Labour Organisation and hundreds of millions of workers suffer from workplace injuries and occupational exposure to hazardous substances worldwide.

These fatal injuries and illnesses are emotionally and financially devastating for the workers and their families. For employers, the loss of an employee in a workplace incident results in the loss of a coworker and friend, in many cases, as well as possible citations and fines for violations of workplace safety and health standards, the cost of medical bills, lost productivity, workers’ compensation insurance increases and low morale among the workforce.

The best way to avoid these disruptions and costs is to eliminate workplace hazards. Read our … Read more...

The Top 7 Tips to Fight Workplace Fatigue

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While there is no one solution to fit everyone’s needs, here are some general strategies that workers and employers can use to manage workplace fatigue and work safely.

Long work hours and irregular work shifts are common in our society. Many workers around the world spend over 40 hours a week at work and hundreds of millions of people work full time on evening, night, rotating or other irregular shifts. Work schedules like these may cause workplace fatigue.

Shift workers may be scheduled to work days, evenings, nights and/or on a rotating or on-call basis. They may work extended shifts (more than 8 hours long), rotating or irregular shifts or consecutive shifts resulting in far more hours than what is considered a typical 40-hour work week. Long work hours and the fatigue associated with them can increase the risk of injuries and accidents and can contribute to poor overall health. … Read more...