risk management – Page 19 – Risk Management 365

Protect Your Coworker’s – Keep Them Safe

Protect coworkers from deadly distractions. Improve your own safety awareness. Have no regrets. These are just a few reasons why you should maintain a close watch on your fellow employees and ensure they are working safely.

Here are five reasons employees should watch out for each other’s safety:

1. When you keep an eye on other people’s safety, your own safety awareness improves.

2. Even “safe” workers can get distracted.

3. We’re all at risk of occasional cognitive failure.

4. You’ll never have to regret that you could have said something but didn’t.

5. It’s just the right thing to do.

via Safety 2012: Be Your Coworker’s Keeper | Safety content from EHS Today.

Don’t Text and Drive

Texting and driving is a deadly combination. You are 23 times more likely to be in a crash texting while driving. The distraction caused by mobile phone use while driving impacts a driver’s reactions equivalent to driving under the influence. A recent University study found “using a cell phone while driving – whether it’s handheld or hands-free – delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08. The legal limit for drivers 21 and over in all states.” Another study found that 4 out of every 5 accidents (80%) are attributed to distracted drivers. In contrast, drunk drivers account for roughly 1 out of 3 (33%) of all accidents nationally.

via Don’t Text & Drive – The No Phone Zone.

Process Safety Management

Unexpected releases of toxic, reactive, or flammable liquids and gases in processes involving highly hazardous chemicals have been reported for many years in various industries that use chemicals with such properties. Regardless of the industry that uses these highly hazardous chemicals, there is a potential for an accidental release any time they are not properly controlled, creating the possibility of disaster.

via Safety and Health Topics | Process Safety Management.

What Are The Benefits Of A Health Risk Assessment?

Conducting a health risk assessment has several potential benefits including identifying health risk factors, controlling health care costs, predicting employee absenteeism, encouraging individuals to take a proactive stance when it comes to personal health care and monitoring the health status of the general population. Each of these factors can contribute to preventing future health problems. Health risk assessments are used by a wide range of groups and for a variety of reasons.

via What Are The Benefits Of A Health Risk Assessment? | LIVESTRONG.COM.

What is “Fall Protection” and why is it so important?

The leading cause of worker fatalities in construction work is from falls. In addition to the over 100 deaths per year caused by falls thousands more construction workers are injured each year by them, according to OSHA statistics. Therefore, the issues of fall protection and training are often large issues in construction site accident litigation.

via What is “Fall Protection” and why is it so important? – Starr Austen & Miller LLP.

Don’t Forget Lockout/Tagout

Picture yourself performing maintenance inside of a huge machine. Suddenly, the machine springs to life, powerful metal gears grinding around you, placing you in mortal danger. That is exactly the sort of terrifying scenario that lockout/tagout is meant to prevent. Lockout/tagout is a procedure to disable equipment to protect workers from either an unexpected release of energy or an accidental start-up while performing job activities.

via The keys to lockout/tagout.

The Distracted Driving Epidemic

Distracted driving has become an epidemic in the United States, and its often fatal consequences are a threat to your workers, your business and the public.

Because millions of workers’ jobs require them to spend part or all of their work day driving ― visiting clients and customers, making site visits, or delivering goods and services ― the Departments of Labor (DOL) and Transportation (DOT) are joining forces in a campaign to stop distracted driving and save lives.

Year after year, the leading cause of worker fatalities is motor vehicle crashes. There’s no question that new communications technologies are helping business work smarter and faster. But getting work done faster does not justify the dramatically increased risk of injury and death that comes with texting while driving.

The human toll is tragic. DOT reports that in 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes linked to distraction and thousands more were injured. “Texting while driving” has become such a prominent hazard that 30 states now ban text messaging for all drivers.

via Distracted Driving.

Business Case for Safety and Health

Employers that invest in workplace safety and health can expect to reduce fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. This will result in cost savings in a variety of areas, such as lowering workers’ compensation costs and medical expenses, avoiding OSHA penalties, and reducing costs to train replacement employees and conduct accident investigations. In addition, employers often find that changes made to improve workplace safety and health can result in significant improvements to their organization’s productivity and financial performance.

via Business Case for Safety and Health – Benefits.

Conflict Resolution

Are people fighting more these days, or does it just seem that way? Whatever the case, learning to resolve conflicts can help young people break down barriers, become leaders, and even prevent deadly confrontations.

Conflict can be negative – in its ultimate form it can lead to war – but it can also be positive, depending on how it’s resolved. For example, it can help get feelings out in the open, help people learn from disagreements, resolve problems, gain someone more respect, or enable people to learn that others are willing to stand up for themselves and what they believe in. In fact, conflict is a natural human process that doesn’t have to lead to violence; conflict resolution and anger management techniques can provide opportunities for people to grow and improve their relationships and the quality of life of those around them despite the inevitable disagreements that arise.

via Conflict Resolution — National Crime Prevention Council.

Safety and Health Add Value

Addressing safety and health issues in the workplace saves the employer money and adds value to the business. Recent estimates place the business costs associated with occupational injuries at close to $170 billion – expenditures that come straight out of company profits.

When workers stay whole and healthy, the direct cost-savings to businesses include:

lower workers’ compensation insurance costs;
reduced medical expenditures;
smaller expenditures for return-to-work programs;
fewer faulty products;
lower costs for job accommodations for injured workers;
less money spent for overtime benefits.

Safety and health also make big reductions in indirect costs, due to:

increased productivity;
higher quality products;
increased morale;
better labor/management relations;
reduced turnover;
better use of human resources.

Employees and their families benefit from safety and health because:

their incomes are protected;
their family lives are not hampered by injury;
they have less stress.

Simply put, protecting people on the job is in everyone’s best interest – our economy, our communities, our fellow workers and our families. Safety and health add value to businesses, workplaces and lives.

via Employee Health and Safety – SmallBusinessNotes.com.