Tag Archives: EHS

Good Systems Are Essential to Great Safety Cultures

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There’s no easy and quick fix when it comes to building a safety culture.

Every organization is unique and dynamic in nature, and each has its own personality. Added to this is the reality that success in Safety is, for the most part, determined by the Safety professional’s customer – the organization’s workers themselves – and for most of us as Safety pros, our list of customers is long and varied. And each has a different definition of success.

Graphic of manufacturing company using mobile inspection tools to create a good safety system

Parallel to this thought is that there is no “one right way” to build a safer culture. Rather, it is a number of elements that must be employed to build robustness within the safety process. Simply put, organizations that demonstrate world-class performance employ a strategy with elements that control loss-producing variation throughout the work system.

Controlling process variation is not a new concept. Many successful operational effectiveness programs have been … Read more...

How to Handle Permits to Work the Modern, Efficient Way

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Most employers are legally required to post some form of Permit to Work – whether it is a construction site, hospital, manufacturing plant or even a brewery. A Permit to Work:

  • makes workers, supervisors and management aware of any hazards around them,
  • educates them on how to safely work with the hazards, and
  • in many cases, lays out an action plan to ensure everyone works safely with each other.

Graphic of a document being stamped

Employers must post a printed Permit to Work in a visible space for workers to see when they enter the work site. They must also inform workers entering the work site for the first time of any open permits. Workers must confirm, through a signature, that they acknowledge and are aware of the information provided to them. While this task sounds simple, companies with large worksites must often manage hundreds of workers coming on and off a site with multiple Permits … Read more...

Why it’s critical to get Lockout/Tagout right

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The Lockout/Tagout (Control of Hazardous Energy) standard is one of the most frequently cited standards of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA). For this reason and many others, says Eric Conn, Chair, OSHA/Workplace Safety Practice Group at Conn Maciel Carey LLP, companies should make compliance with the standard an area of focus. The firm, which specializes in OSHA-related matters, sees Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) consistently appearing in the top five on OSHA’s list of most frequently-cited standards.

A lockout/tagout on a pipe

“OSHA is paying a lot of attention to it,” Conn said during a recent webinar devoted to the topic.

“It’s known as the low-hanging fruit. When OSHA is in your facility, no matter what it is that caused them to be there, [LOTO] is something they can find and cite rather easily, and they do.”

The LOTO standard is designed to protect workers from hazardous energy and moving mechanical parts while they are … Read more...

Measuring Safety Part 2 – Serious Injury Fatality – Rethinking Measurement and Prevention

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workers

In Measuring Safety Part 1, we reviewed the drawbacks of focusing solely on the measurement of safety outcomes absent understanding and tracking operational processes and events that are predictive of a safe workplace. In Part 2 of the series, we are going to dive deeper into the implications of this thinking by reviewing “Serious Injury Fatality” (SIF).

Serious Injury Fatality (SIF) – Breaking it down

The concept is not new. Workplace fatalities have been the object of preventive corporate policies and regulatory scrutiny for decades. Before my interview with Todd Conklin during Pre-accident podcast, however, I had only seen the abbreviation of “SIF” online.

Being an avid reader and learner, I began my Google search on the SIF-phenomenon which revealed many sources on the topic: White papers, several documents by Fred Manuele, and a YouTube video for learning on the subject. Though my search was not an … Read more...

Measuring Safety, part 1 – The Relevance of Outcomes

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The other day I received another self-praising message in my news-feed, one of Norway’s major construction contractors was celebrating their one year anniversary since their last lost time injury incident, making their LTIF now “Zero”.

While reading James Reason’s latest book, “Organisational Accidents Revisited” I noticed the quote: “The road to Hell is paved with falling LTI frequency rates”,  illustrated by major cases like DWH and Texas City.

I believe it is good when no one has been injured as a consequence of their work. At the same time, this has again turned my attention to something which has been keeping me busy for many years;

why are people so focused on outcomes, when they mean so little in terms of improvement, especially in safety?

 Obsessed About Outcomes

When an incident or accident happens, it’s generally the consequences that attract great attention. From a humanitarian and … Read more...

The Difference Between CapEx and OpEx Software Purchases

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The reality is that enterprise software purchases are complex. The purchase process can be long and drawn out and include dozens, if not hundreds of factors. When it comes to making decisions around which solutions to go with, technology and technological capability are merely one subset of these factors. How to pay for new software is another and equally important element of a purchase decision you should keep in mind as well.

This is especially the case when it comes to today’s software landscape. The cloud and SaaS have created new purchase options beyond traditional owned perpetual software licensing. This in turn has also opened up new options when it comes to the financing models used to pay for software that buyers can now consider.

You’re probably not an accountant and may only have a modest understanding of the benefits of accounting for technology investments as an operational expense versus … Read more...

Materiality Assessments in 4 Simple Steps

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What is it?

Materiality. It’s a concept that comes up more and more frequently – especially when it comes to discussions of sustainability. But what is it exactly and how and why is it applicable to EHS?

Put simply. Materiality is a principle to help define and determine the business, social and environmental topics that matter most to a business and its stakeholders. This is also something that 80% of the world’s largest 250 companies are already tracking and reporting on as part of their sustainability reporting efforts.

Like many topics this is in part due to increased focus on corporate social responsibility as a differentiator for these businesses, and in part due to regulations and standards. Of these standards, the main one is the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G4 guidelines. In Europe there is currently the added pressure of the European Directive on non-financial reporting for publicly traded companies … Read more...