Safety with a Paint Brush

Safety with a Paint Brush

I found an article on OSH in an art class - that's right, someone wrote about being safe while painting a picture. Now I have to admit upon reading the title I opened it with a mixture of trepidation - was this going to be another example of people giving OSH a bad reputation? 

I recently heard about a contractor working for a major company, as this 'principle' decided a measure of safety was the number of hazard notices filed per week. One of the company's OSH enforcers took it on himself to point out to the contractor they needed to increase their hazard reporting, and placed a black mark against their performance because they hadn't identified a potential hazard of a photocopier machine that is releasing 'chemicals' from use. Can you imagine how ridiculous some of these reported hazards were, and what such a reporting requirement was doing to the culture of safety in this workplace?

But reading this makes some sense, as it refers to basic emergency preparedness and room preparation for new people in a new environment. Maybe they are being a bit too overzealous however, I like the principal. They did take a sensible approach ie nothing stupid like getting poked in the eye from the paint brush, but how to evacuate in a fire. Simple stuff that often seems so basic, it’s not discussed on prepared for in such environments. The lesson is to take the same approach in your business. Take some safety action, but keep it real.

How Management Can Undermine Safety

I read a really good example on, unfortunately, poor safety management. A truck driver cut his head and reported the incident. The safety manager then decided that the best preventative measure was for all truck drivers to wear safety hats. The decision was passed all the way back down until it reached the hard-nosed truck drivers. Even reading this I'm sure you can imagine the reaction! Especially as the cab doors were not large and if they did wear hard hats, they would be knocked off every time anyway.

There are so many lessons in this example, including how to conduct an investigation (ie ask the workers!), and how to encourage any incident report to include recommendations at the point-of-sale ie better open communication. But the biggest lesson is one of numpty communications - all the good work around safety can be undone by 1 flippant comment or decision, especially from a senior manager. This resulted in:

1. Ridicule of the manager

2. Distrust in the company

3. Ridicule of all those people that passed on the message

4. and a likely drop in reporting of incidents (and opportunity to learn)

Safety Management decisions are far reaching! Please be thoughtful and more thorough in your decision making around safety.

Untitled

Experience Rating 

 

What the ACC were finding was that companies that were getting a discount for having an approved OSH system in place were not necessary any better (injury rate wise) than companies in the same industry. They also found that if two companies in the same industry were getting the discount, one may have a significantly recued injury rate compared to the other, but were not getting any reward for the lower injury rate. So they introduced the Experience Rating as of 01 Apr 2011.

The details are here but in a nutshell, smaller companies will simply get a no-claim bonus if the numbers of injuries are zero/low. Larger companies will have their injury rate compared to others in their risk group. Poor performers will have their levy increased by up to 50%! Good performers will have their levy reduced by up to 50%. Now how would a 50% loading on your current ACC levy cost you today?

 

In summary then smart NZ companies will receive a discount for having an OSH System in place. The smartest companies will have an OSH system that actually works for their business.

Note the Minister of the ACC has confirmed that workplace injuries that resulted from the Christchurch earthquake will not have their injuries included in their Experience rating. Good to see some common sense at work.

How much is investing in health and safety worth?

 

The perennial question, especially from the accountants. What they really want to know is will the investment into safety return anything, or is it a pointless cost. So we need to find some way to measure the cost of the outcomes of an accident, and then we can justify the investment. The costs of an accident can be measured in direct and indirect costs.

Direct Cost

1.      For the injured person, there is almost always pain and suffering endured.

2.      Depending on the company, sick time, compensation time, etc, the worker may experience a loss of income.

3.      If the injury or illness is serious enough, there is a real possibility that the worker may lose their job.

4.      Doctor and hospital or medical bills are sure to be of major concern to both the worker and employee.

Indirect Cost

1.      Suffering endured by the workers family.

2.      The employer will likely pay for missed work days. Work is not performed but yet the employer has paid for it.

3.      Compensation payments and medical expenses.

4.      Lower moral or negative attitudes by other workers.

5.      Loss in productivity.

6.      Machinery repair or replacement costs.

7.      Retraining or replacing workers.

The indirect costs are more difficult to measure, but estimates range from being 0.5-20 times the direct costs.

The other safety costs

The Department of Labour have put together a more detailed table on these costs, including the tangible and intangible costs.

Once you have a working safety system that is being invested into, they key is to continue the investment and maintain a sense of concern about the possibility of a safety accident. Here’s the tricky part though; the aim of safety programs is to prevent nothing occurring – no safety accident. If nothing happens it can be easy for a cost-cutting accountant to then suggest reducing the safety investment! And so the wheel turns.

To fight this threat, continue to report the cost of accidents within your business and your industry. Keep you safety system humming!

Safety and Hazard Management

One approach to thinking about safety management is to talk about the control of energy. This can be chemical energy, biological and most often, kinetic energy. That is, energy caused by movement. This category can be further broken down into twisting, shearing, direct, heat etc and the aim is to identify how to manage potential injuries that can result from transfer of energy to the person.

There is also the categories of planned or visible movement energy, and then the unplanned. When dealing with the obvious safety hazards we need to attempt to first eliminate the movement. However, quite often this is not possible (!) so we move into the next form of control, isolation. We use barriers, and guards  that separate the worker from the equipment that could transfer the energy. 

Other movements then come from the unplanned category - the unexpected. Insecure loads, pallets stacked incorrectly or too high, lights not working that will indicate a backing vehicle, equipment that breaks and transfers loads energy to people. Basically, a lot of unexpected accidents are preventable by having in place systems to ensure equipment are maintained, people are trained in use of equipment, and procedures are written down to instruct staff how to do a task quickly, and safely.

When the unexpected does occur though, then an emergency response needs to be robust enough that it can deal will all likely accidents within your workplace and location. This may require a first aid safety response as a first response.

Quadbike Safety Update

Recently I wrote a blog on Quadbike Safety however, the Department of Labour have released a new guide on Quadbike Safety.

The quadbike safety steps you need to know are summarised here:

·         Before you ride ask yourself whether the quadbike is the right vehicle for the job

·         Ensure riders are trained / experienced enough to do the job

·         Always wear a helmet

·         Recognise dangerous areas by establishing ‘no-go zones’  

·         Don’t carry passengers

·         Don’t let kids under 16 ride adult quadbikes

·         Check the operating condition of the quadbike before you ride

·         Keep quadbikes maintained in a safe condition

·         Keep within the manufacturer’s towing or carrying limits

·         Only use attachments designed for and compatible with the quadbike

·         Don’t do tasks that interfere with safe riding

·         Tell someone where you are going

·         Avoid use while fatigued or under stress

·         Restrict unauthorised access to the quad bike.

In developing your safety system remember while you do not need to specifically follow the guide, if anything goes wrong you need a good reason why you did things outside of these guidelines.

Safety and Working at Heights

A distinction is often made between fall heights greater than three metres and those less than three metres. This is mainly due to Regulation 21 of the Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995, usually interpreted as the three metre rule. What that rule says is that if you are working over three metres there must be a system to prevent you falling.

In fact more injuries occur from falls less than three metres high. The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 requires every employer to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of employees while at work and sections 8 -10 of the Act sets out a hierarchy of duties to be considered in sequence. This is the ‘Eliminate, Isolate, Minimise’ process and it doesn’t matter what height you are at.

Safety Controls for Working at Heights

The following principles should be adhered to irrespective of the fall height:

- Consider whether the job can be done without exposing people to the hazard (eliminate). This can be often best achieved by considering such elimination at the design, construction, planning and tendering stages. Elimination could involve having under-wing access panels for some tasks instead of only over-wing panels. It could also include built-in test equipment accessed from the ground which eliminates the need for a physical check.

- If elimination is not practicable then action should be taken to isolate people from the hazard. Safe working platforms or guardrail systems can be used to isolate people from the hazard.

- If elimination or isolation is not practicable then action should be taken to minimise the likelihood of harm resulting. This means considering the use of personal protective equipment, safety nets, airbags, fall arrest systems, etc. The hazard is still present; you are just lessening its impact. One thing to remember about personal protective equipment (not just for working at height, but also for noise and respiratory protection) is that it never fails safe, it always fails to danger. It really is the last line of defence. If working above three metres then minimisation by using safety nets or airbags is not an option, which is what the three metre rule is really about. If a person is exposed to a fall of greater than three metres a system has to be put in place to prevent a person falling. Airbags and nets only work after the fall has taken place rather than being a means of preventing the fall. So if you are working where a fall of three metres is possible, you should have a platform, a restraint, or be looking to eliminate the requirement to get that high at all.

Remember, safety at heights can also apply in the home!

Ten Reasons to Get Involved in Safety Activity

Ten Reasons to Get Involved in Safety Activity
v Self-preservation - the need for freedom from injury
v Personal gain - the desire for reward
v Loyalty - the desire to cooperate
v Responsibility - the recognition of obligation
v Pride - the desire for praise or self satisfaction
v Conformity - the fear of being thought different
v Rivalry - the desire to compete
v Leadership - the desire to be outstanding
v Logic - the special ability to reason
v Humanity - the desire to serve others

‘Do or do not. There is no try’
 Yoda, Jedi Safety Professional

Investigating an Accident? Read These Simple Interview Techniques unclassified

Investigating an Accident? Read These Simple Interview Techniques

You may have been assigned the role of investigating an accident and working out what actually happended, so the company could learn and prevent a future mistake. Obviously the first steps following an accident are to treat any injuries and make sure the scene is safe, so no other person can be hurt. And depending upon the severtity of the accident, the scene may need to be secured to protect the evidencee. Securing physical evidence is easier though then securing the evidence inside a person(s) mind. Memories will be inadvertantly distorted with emotions and shock following a streesful incident, and will become more altered as people talk with others, recount and reinforce what they believe happended. Others may intentionally withhold information out of fear - fear for their job (the topic of a 'open reporting culture' is a book all in itself). As the investigator then you need some basic interviewing techniques in order to quickly obtain the best account from all witnesses.

Your Manner and Tone is Extremely Important When  Investigating an Accident

First, set the scene. Provide a physical environment free from distractions or source of stress. While it is extremely important to interview a witness as soon as possible, allow the person some time to deal with the situation. Are they in shock because a work colleague has just died; if that colleage was a close friend, even a spouse then obviously the impact will be greater. Balance the need for learning to preven another disaster with the immediate needs of the individual and make your own judegement call. Most accident though will be minor in nature, and allow you to quicly progress into the interview process.

Seven Steps To Work Through When Investigating an Accident

Step 1 - Ask the witness to recall the events in chronologial order. Remember the 'We have 2 ears and 1 mouth so we can listen more than we talk'. In this case, only tal to clarify parts of their story. It is extremely important to let them work through the order in their own time, in their own words. If you already have a preconcieved idea of the casues of the accident, then it is easy to start asking questions of the witness around your thoughts, rather than obtaining their thoughts! Your time will come; just get their thoughts out. (Note: an alternative to this first step, espcialy if it is tramatic as above or yo are travelling to get to the person, and their will be a time dealy is to ask the people to write down their story of events. When you get together, have them go through step 1 aobe without the notes, as we'll use the notes later…)

Step 2 - have the witness sketch the event/area. Not only does this paint the picture for you, it uses a different part of their brain and deos unlock further recollections.

Step 3 - Effectively a variation on step 1. Have the witness now start from 'the beginning' and complete at the incident. And then start from the incident and continue to the end. This does work.

Step 4 - Check to see if anyhing relevant ocured after the recall

Sep 5 - Ask subject to recell events in reverse order

Step 6- Check to see if anyhing relevant ocured prior to the start of the recall

Step 7 - Focused recall, on people anf things. Good time to pull out written statement and recheck

Follow these simple steps when investigating an accident to determine the many causal factors.

Written Safety Communication or Safety Notes?

Safety procedures, codes of practice, safety data sheets (SDS), guidelines and standard operating procedures need to be written in a manner the target audience can understand. For example, a study published in 'Workers Compensation Fund'  Winter-Spring 2004 found that the average safety data sheet is written at a university level, which is well above the comprehension of most workers.

What that means for business owners is that all of your safety communication needs to be delivered in the format the workers will 'get'. Even within a medium sized business, there will be varying degrees of ability in understanding the written word, including how the layout, grammar, sentence structure, word choice, graphics and so on all work together to convey a safety message.

The Safety Message May Not Get Through

Most of our formal literacy skills are developed at and finish at school; some go on to higher level training and others take up the profession of writing. Regardless, we are then influenced by TV sound bites, text language, short and sharp emails or even informal blogs which will degrade these more formal skills. There is nothing wrong with this, except if all your safety communication does not acknowledge this reality and continues delivering a safety message no one understands. And we have not even mentioned workers who are barely proficient with spoken English, let alone written English or cultural barriers around communicating. How does this relate to your safety messages?

Sell Safety With Basic Marketing Practices

Businesses need to start applying their own marketing skills to sell the safety message to their employees. While formal safety documents may be required at the management level and in dealing with contractors, they must be translated as appropriate so every person can understand the safety messages. Better yet, get the safety committee to identify those safety hazards that must be addressed, and 'translate' the message to worker speak.

Sell Safety with pictures, graphics, graphs and shorter text. Give your employees a video camera and ask them to shoot a safety video around a specific safety hazard. This will make the issues real and memorable to your workers. Run a competition for the best video, and reward staff for efforts in promoting and enhancing safety communication at work.

Or getting people to talk about safety (doesn’t that sound easier than ‘promoting and enhancing safety communication at work’?)

Written Safety Communication or Safety Notes - it really depends upon the audience.