Here’s a small company with some big safety achievements. The key to their success is focusing on “real work/most likely situations.”
React Environment Professional Services Group, Inc. (REPSG) is a Philadelphia environmental remediation firm with just 25 employees who perform assessments and cleanups.
When asked what led this small company to big safety success, Charlene Drake, director of operations, says it’s all about their approach to worker protection.
“The OSH program at REPSG provides exceptional value by focusing on the real world/most likely situations our workers will face, not on doomsday scenarios.” That means vigilance in identifying and eliminating hazards wherever they lurk—from slips and falls to driving on highways, extreme temperatures, the presence of needles in abandoned buildings, and the chance that a piece of a dilapidated structure could land on someone’s head.
Keeping it real for REPSG workers also means helping them make the right decisions, says Drake. All employees complete 40-hour OSHA HAZWOPER training, which prepares them for working around hazards like benzene and asbestos, and in confined spaces.
But REPSG goes beyond compliance and drills down into the judgment calls, such as when to enter a building, or when to step back and select some additional PPE.
Drake says management also helps employees identify the red flags that would indicate that it’s time for additional training.
Great news! BLR’s renowned Safety.BLR.com® website now has even more time-saving features. Take our no-cost site tour!
Or better yet, try it at no cost or obligation for a full 2 weeks.
The Focus Is on Safety Concerns, Too
REPSG’s focus on real-world hazards also extends to an open approach to near misses. “None of us wants to get hurt, so people are quite willing to talk about their near misses and admit mistakes,” says Drake.
Employees are trained to discuss these incidents with their managers, who help decide if they’re part of a pattern and if others would benefit from knowing about them. Sometimes employees who experience near misses are asked to discuss the incidents during refresher training.
Also, during daily end-of-shift briefings, employees update their supervisors on how the day went and if any safety concerns arose. The attitude is nonpunitive, and there’s never an assumption that an employee was at fault.
“Managers understand that communication is a priority,” says Drake. An attitude of full disclosure is possible because workers in the field and their supervisors are equally committed to avoiding accidents. “It’s our job to foster employees’ common sense and enhance it with good training,” she adds.
Your one-stop safety management resource, available 24/7. Go here to take a no-cost site tour or here to try it in your own office!
Training Options 24/7
No doubt you, too, want to foster employees’ common sense and enhance it with good training. Well, no matter what kind of safety training you need to give your safety and health programs something special, you’ll find it at Safety.BLR.com.
This one-stop safety website is a fantastic resource for safety training materials on just about any topic you can imagine.
Training responsibilities become a snap with the website’s thousands of audio presentations, PowerPoints, prewritten safety meetings, toolbox talks, trainer’s guides, and much, much more. You’ll find training tools on more than 120 safety topics along with plain-English compliance analysis and other resources.
At a time when budget considerations are paramount, what makes more sense than an all-in-one safety training and compliance solution?
And BLR recently revamped Safety.BLR.com to meet your needs even better. Those of you who used the site in its original version will be amazed by all the new features and functionality. Highlights include:
- Side-by-Side State/Federal Compliance. By placing our state and federal regulatory analysis side by side, you easily see how to fully comply with both governmental entities.
- MSDS Library Expansion. The site now provides an immense library of 3.5 million MSDS forms, with about 10,000 more added or changed every week. Need one? Just call up the chemical by name, manufacturer, product group, or CAS number, then print it out.
- Newsletter Wizard. If you’ve ever wanted to publish a safety newsletter but felt lacking in editorial skills, this new addition is for you.
- Plan Builder. Select from our library of safety plans, customize them to suit your company’s needs, and assemble them into collections you can save in our personal library.
We’re pretty excited about Safety.BLR.com and all of its recent enhancements, and we’re eager for you to experience it, too. That’s why we’ve created a complimentary site tour, available here. It takes just 5 minutes.
If you like what you see, you’re invited to try the site at no cost and with no obligation. We’ll even give you a complimentary special report for doing so. Go here to take a 5-minute tour of the new Safety.BLR.com. It may be just what you’re looking for.