Permit to Work Boosts Safety by Design Strategies

Permit to work is a formal process that identifies, communicates and mitigates risk.
Permit to work is a formal process that identifies, communicates and mitigates risk for workers completing non-routine tasks in potentially hazardous work areas.

As companies pursue more proactive and preventive safety strategies such as Safety by Design, they are looking for new processes and methods such as Permit to Work software, to help make it happen.

Keeping workers healthy, happy and safe should be a strong governance focus within every company’s ESG strategy. In 2019, over 27% of the 5,333 worker fatalities in the U.S. were due to workplace hazards such as getting struck or caught in objects or equipment (14%), exposure to harmful substances or environments (12%) or injury from fire and explosion (2%). And for every hazard-related worker fatality, there were 20 to 60 times as many non-fatal incidents that created costly and disruptive downtime and absences from work. So, despite an increased emphasis on improving worker … Read more...

Does Document Management Apply to Fish? The Answer is More Complicated Than You Might Think

Document Management

In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that a fish is not a document. While this might seem like an absurd problem for one of the most powerful legal organizations in the world to consider, the idea behind it is an important one that might have an impact on how you do your job. On August 23, 2007, John Yates, the captain of the fishing boat Miss Katie, was fishing off the coast of Florida when he was found to have caught and kept a number of red grouper fish that were under the legal minimum size limit of 20 inches. The field officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission instructed Yates to return to port and keep the fish for evidence. Instead, Yates threw the fish back into the sea, effectively destroying the evidence against him.

In response, the Department of Justice … Read more...

8 Checklists for 2020: A Quick Way to Check In and Level Up Your EHSQ Programs

These checklists from Intelex offer practical advice about managing aspects of safety like slips and falls and electrical hazards, help you touch base with employees during these stressful times, offer insight into your organization’s preparedness planning, provide guidance on quality issues like voice of customer and 5S, and much more!

Don’t Be Shocked – A Checklist for Electrical Safety – While the objective of protecting the safety of their employees continues to be a strong focus for employers, there still needs to be more checks in place to reduce injuries.

Embrace the New Age of Digital Learning: Training Management in the Age of COVID-19 – Learning and training is more important than ever. When the world moves quickly, sometimes in unexpected ways, we need to make sure our training can keep up and give our teams what they need to survive and thrive.

Back to Work Checklist for Mindful Leaders – While strategic vision … Read more...

Communicating in Crisis: The Role of EHS in Managing Communication

In Part Two of the series “Communicating in Crisis,” Scott Gaddis explains the role of the EHS function in gathering information to help the organization make informed decisions as part of crisis management efforts. Read Part One, “Communicating in Crisis: The Role of the EHS Practitioner.”

The EHS function often plays a role in internal and external communication during crisis management.

The EHS practitioner is likely to work along several paths in dealing with and communicating in a crisis.  In an emergency, the practitioner has multiple audiences that will need to be informed including employees, senior management and government agencies. The media and the public also are a consideration, but usually with the idea of supporting that activity with data that will be shared externally by others.    

It is imperative to gather as much information as you can about what happened. Taking for granted that people have … Read more...