Training

General Safety Review

The year’s end provides a good time to revisit general safety principles with your workers. Begin with the basics: There are two types of general hazards on the job: unsafe acts and unsafe conditions. Unsafe acts are actions workers take that ignore safety procedures and risk their own or co-workers’ health and safety. They include not wearing protective clothing, mixing reactive chemicals, using a machine without a guard, or tossing sharp tools around the work area.

Unsafe conditions are machines, tools, protective equipment, or work area situations that don’t comply with safety rules and practices and have to be fixed or corrected in order to protect the people who work here. Examples include frayed electric cords, tools that spark, leaking chemical containers, and inadequate ventilation.

Remind your workers that they are often in the best position to notice unsafe acts and conditions. In fact, a key part of their safety responsibility is to:

  • Know what constitutes a safety hazard
  • Be on the lookout for safety hazards
  • Correct or report safety hazards immediately

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Workers learn what constitutes a safety hazard through training, safety meetings, labels, and material safety data sheets. They also need to use their experience, instinct, and common sense. Remind them to ask these questions as they work:

  • Is there a chance of a person, equipment, or materials getting caught in or between objects?
  • Is there a danger of falling, tripping, or slipping?
  • Is there a chance of being hit by or against an object?
  • Are there materials around that could burn or explode?
  • Are there materials that could create health hazards?
  • Is there a danger of electrical overload?
  • Are emergency exits blocked, or is emergency equipment out of commission?
  • Are there unlabeled substances in the work area?

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In addition to hazard identification, your workers have other safety responsibilities. Here are the “Top Ten”:

  1. Know and follow safe work procedures.
  2. Avoid obvious unsafe acts, such as running through the work area or tossing tools.
  3. Keep the work area clean and uncluttered. Keep aisles and stairways clear, clean up spills, properly dispose of flammable scrap, and take other steps to eliminate items or conditions that could create a hazard.
  4. Report accidents, injuries, illnesses, exposures to hazardous substances, and near-misses immediately.
  5. Report situations that don’t seem right even if you’re unsure they’re hazards. This is especially important if you’re working with hazardous chemicals; where symptoms that appear to be minor, like a headache or red skin, may be the first indicator of overexposure.
  6. Cooperate with internal inspections and job hazard analyses.
  7. Follow company safety rules. They combine government laws and regulations with the experience of many people in this company and this industry.
  8. Look for ways to make the job safer. Do your part to improve safety by voicing your observations and making suggestions.
  9. Participate in safety training. Apply what you learn and help co-workers when they’re unsure of what to do.
  10. Treat safety as one of your most important job responsibilities. Your job is not only to perform particular tasks and get particular results: It’s to do those things safely.

Why It Matters

  • Safety is a key to efficiency and productivity.
  • Safety training contributes to keeping workers safe, healthy, on the job, and productive.
  • Safety training supervisors need to keep the importance of safety a top priority in workers’ minds every year — and every day!

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