Safety Management Archives - Incident Prevention

Security in the Field: A Largely Unnoticed Need

Written by Jim Willis, CMAS, CHS-V on December 13, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

It’s time for worker security to receive the same attention as worker safety. Society today is no longer predisposed to viewing utility employees in a friendly manner, and aggression toward them is growing. For some time, the steady rise in aggression toward utility workers has flown under the radar. Whether employee or contractor, job site violence is a real threat. Of the multitude of issues fueling this aggression, one of the most significant is shifting public opinions of utilities themselves. For a growing segment of the population, public utilities are nuisances to be confronted, not benefactors...

Electrical Arc Flash and Shock Hazards for Fall Protection Using ASTM F887

Written by Hugh Hoagland and Stacy Klausing, M.S. and Zarheer Jooma on October 4, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

Electrical Arc Flash and Shock Hazards for Fall Protection Using ASTM F887 The standard helps to ensure equipment safety in multihazard environments. Arc-rated personal protective equipment (PPE) provides thermal protection against burns to a worker’s body. Fall protective systems, although categorized as PPE, do not have the same primary purpose. A fall protective system’s primary performance requirement is fall protection. In applications where both the exposure to thermal hazards from an electric arc or flame and the prevention of falls must be considered, the fall protective system must...

Managing Risk Through Cognitive Impairment Testing

Written by Lee Marchessault and Peri Eryigit on August 11, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

Editor’s Note: Incident Prevention does not condone, promote or recommend manufacturers’ products mentioned in technical articles. The magazine’s editorial advisory board will make exceptions for devices, technology or equipment that is unique in its design or application. The board has found that AlertMeter, mentioned in this article, meets the exception as their research could not find a competitor that offered a similar device. Incident Prevention believes the information provided in this article to be an evolving application in risk prevention and therefore of interest to readers. Incident...

Are Your Lessons Learned Making Your Workers Safer?

Written by Bill Martin, CUSP, NRP, RN, DIMM on August 11, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

Reports of the incident travel like lightning through the company. There are no real details yet, just a statement that at 10 a.m. today, an employee of The Big City Project was seriously injured on the job. The event soon becomes the subject of coffee break conversations. “We’ve had a lot of serious incidents lately” seems to be the consensus.

Lagging Indicators, Leading Indicators … Let’s Start Over

Written by Pam Walaski, CSP on May 21, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

What do indicators really mean? Occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals continue to debate this issue. Can indicators really measure performance of an OSH program? On one side are lagging indicators, which include common markers such as total recordable incident rate (TRIR); days away, restricted and transfer rate; and experience modification rate.

Overcome ‘Burnt Toast Syndrome’ to Improve Safety and Training Results

Written by Mack Turner, CUSP on April 15, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

I have a beautiful and caring better half. She is always there for me. One of the things she does for me is make breakfast. Now, I am an old country boy, so any old breakfast won’t do. I want meat, eggs, potatoes and toast, and she is happy to prepare them for me.

The Biological Basis of Complacency

Written by Sharon Lipinski on April 15, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

The adverse effects of complacency in the workplace have long been an ongoing source of concern in the safety community. What is not agreed upon is the reason for this problem. In my own experience, I have noticed that safety professionals use the term “complacency” in different ways to refer to different kinds of events.

My Shocking Awakening: Lessons Learned From a High-Voltage Contact

Written by Lito Wilkins, CUSP on February 12, 2021. Posted in Safety Management.

Why is this happening? It hurts! Don’t let go! These are some of the thoughts that ran through my mind on a day in late 2015 when an induction contact surged through and around my body for roughly 30 seconds.

Leading Change Through Faith, Hope and Tough Love: Part II

Written by Jesse Hardy, CSP, CIT, CUSP on December 11, 2020. Posted in Safety Management.

As we discovered in the first part of this two-part series (see https://incident-prevention.com/blog/leading-change-through-faith-hope-and-tough-love-part-i), people are fallible, sometimes lessons aren’t learned, and improvements aren’t always made. This can leave leaders and team members feeling frustrated or apathetic because they don’t know how to right the ship. The simple truth is that your team should be able to succeed today and learn what they need to improve tomorrow. The simple solution is to speak from vision through faith and hope, and lead with tough love. However, simple rarely...

Tag: Safety Management