Tag Archives: EHS

Labor Day Through the Years – Don’t Allow the Pandemic of 2020 to Derail your EHS Efforts

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The first Monday in September is dedicated to Labor Day, which honors the dedication and sacrifice made by today’s workers, as well as the sacrifices of the workers who came before us.

Looking at a timeline of the 150 years leading up to now, one thing becomes apparent: the Labor Day celebrations we enjoy today, filled with picnics and family time, are the result of the blood, sweat and tears of millions of workers throughout the last century and a half and beyond.

From mining disasters that claimed hundreds of lives, to construction work that triggered an epidemic of silicosis among workers on a bridge project, to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, workers have paid the price of lax workplace safety and health practices with their lives.

I’m not an EHS professional. I’m a journalist and content director. But over the years, especially as I was growing up, worker safety … Read more...

RFPs Help You Compare Apples to Apples in Your Search for Solutions

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Top companies embrace change as an opportunity to transform their business and beat the competition. They actively research, procure, deploy and manage new hardware, software and services to lower costs and increase revenues. Creating a request for proposal (RFP) often is an early step in finding solutions to your organization’s pain points.

RFPs standardize project specifics such as goal(s), scope, timeline and budget for potential vendors, and ensure you are comparing apples to apples. RFPs are a common best-practice for procurement by private and public companies and governments. In fact, the average public sector organization runs 18 RFPs a year.

“Major changes to your business require an expenditure of resources, including what can be a significant investment in time and money. The return on your investment should be EHSQ software that spans the gaps across functions and can connect with other systems at your organization that are part of production, … Read more...

Celebrating Safe + Sound Week by Recognizing Companies that Lead EHS

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Safe + Sound Week, Aug. 10-16, was created as a nationwide event to recognize the successes of businesses that have adopted programs to improve workplace safety and health. Implementing a safety and health program can improve businesses’ safety and health performance, save money, and improve competitiveness.

Each August, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Safety Council, Intelex and other participants and sponsors invite you to share your safety successes as part of Safe + Sound Week. We know that successful safety and health programs can proactively identify and manage workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness, while improving business sustainability.

I’ve been writing about safe companies for 25 years. Here’s what they all have in common: They are organizations that have created world-class cultures that make EHS a corporate value. Notice I didn’t say “safety culture?” They have world-class organizational cultures and EHS is integrated into … Read more...

How a Robust EHS Solution can Help you Address COVID-19 Related Challenges in your Organization

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With the profusion of COVID-19 related information readily available, it’s critical to focus on the things you can control and to create an action-based plan of attack. While creating long-term plans is important, there are actions that should be taken today.

It makes sense to start with identifying the resources and tools that you need to successfully protect employees. Once you’ve established buy-in from leadership, develop a dedicated task force (if possible) that combines EHS, quality, production, human resources and other internal shareholders who can help develop a return-to-work strategy. Once that task force has been created, the next step is to identify the tools required to address this.

Gaining Insights from Organizations Who Launched Employee Benefit-Focused COVID-19 Response Programs

Since the outbreak of this pandemic, there have been some companies that have introduced some innovative solutions to manage issues they have faced related to COVID-19. These success stories have … Read more...

Your EHS 4.0 Survival Guide: Digital Transformation with Connected Solutions

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There’s a lot of discussion about “emerging technologies,” such as smart sensors, drones, cloud computing and mobile applications. But what many EHS and operations professionals fail to realize is that they already have powerful connected solutions close at hand.

Whether you are responsible for worker safety or operations management, you understand the complexities of managing workers, safety, and production while continuing to strive for operational excellence. Recently, you probably faced unscheduled shutdowns and consequently will engage in unscheduled start-ups. These are challenging times that require attention to process and safety management systems to prevent incidents.

You’re not alone in this challenge. EHS professionals who don’t embrace all of the connected solutions available to them often find themselves in the dark when it comes to identifying and mitigating hazards and improving how people and equipment are performing.

Connected Solutions Amplify Worker Safety

In this May 12 EHS Today webinar, “Your EHS … Read more...

Making Your Working from Home Routine Work for You: 10 Tips and Tricks to Help Keep You Productive and Healthy

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How to maximize your efforts when working from home.

Did you know that in the United States alone, even before COVID-19, over 5 million people, representing about 4% of the total population, work from home at least 50% of the time? In fact, some experts predict that in less than 20 years, over 70% of corporate employees will be working remotely. With COVID-19 quarantine as a part of our reality today, for many, working from home has gone from being an option to the only choice we have.    

So what does this mean, exactly? For starters, that it is not a temporary fad.  It also means is that while it is important to prepare for telecommuting (particularly for those of you who haven’t done so yet), it is equally as important to understand how best to do so, while remaining productive and active.

What Organizations are Doing to Adapt to … Read more...

Emerging Tech for EHS&S (Infographic)

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In the Trends in Emerging Tech for EHS&S report from the National Association for EHS&S Management (NAEM), IT and EHS&S practitioners from leading companies provide their insights into the current state of play for technology adoption.

Companies that participated in the survey indicated they utilize technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and more. These emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize the environmental, health, safety, and sustainability (EHS&S) fields.

This infographic offers the key takeaways from the report and the specific emerging technologies that companies are using to grow their environmental, health, safety and sustainability efforts.

What is driving the need for technology adoption? What are the emerging technologies that companies are currently using or planning to use? What are the budgets for emerging technologies?

All this and more can be found in the infographic!

… Read more...

Coronavirus – Leading EHS During Crisis

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Have your priorities as an EHS leader changed during the current Coronavirus crisis?

Organizations are experiencing an unprecedented situation. Now more than ever, EHS professionals can help lead their organizations through the crisis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Over the past 25 years, I’ve spent all my time working as an EHS professional in local and corporate level positions, determined to improve business processes and performance. Throughout my career, I’ve noticed one consistent theme: organizations optimize their efforts when they provide robust and well-balanced leadership.

This means that they do not focus on a single factor but consider the work system, employee capability and capacity, how the organization is led, and the management system. During times of crisis such as what we’re now experiencing with Coronavirus, it is vital to lead your organization more effectively.

Simply, the dividing line between managing things and leading them is measured by the ability to affect … Read more...

The Campbell Institute Releases Strategies for Injury and Fatality Prevention

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Organizations that pursue strategies to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities have reached a level of maturity in their safety management systems that allows them to identify the most serious risks to workers.

The Campbell Institute, the global Center of EHS Excellence at the National Safety Council, has released a new white paper, Designing Strategy for Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention – the second in its series on this emerging safety trend. The report shares the perspectives of 11 Institute member and partner organizations on a variety of topics surrounding the development of their serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention strategies and long-term goals, including metrics, tools, communication, and performance.

“We’re finding that organizations pursuing SIF prevention strategies have reached a level of maturity that goes beyond focusing on near misses and injuries to identifying the most severe risks,” said John Dony, director of the Campbell Institute. “Organizations working on SIF … Read more...

Streamlining Compliance: Using AI to Solve Pain Points in Your Regulatory Compliance Efforts

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Artificial Intelligence doesn’t have to be scary or confusing. Find out how AI works behind the scenes to help update your database of regulations and permits in this webinar from Intelex Technologies and EHS Today.

Ever wonder why, if you click on an online ad, you suddenly start seeing ads for similar products? Or why, if you join a Facebook group, you suddenly start receiving suggestions of other groups you might want to join? The answer is artificial intelligence. It tracks our browsing habits – that’s what those “cookies” are for – and fuels the suggestions search engines and powerful online entities like Facebook and Amazon make for us.

AI in the Workplace

By 2035, it’s projected that the construction industry will see a profit increase of 71 percent by making use of artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline operations and increase precision. Neoteric, in “10 use cases of AI … Read more...