Special Topics in Safety Management

Help Workers Make the Connection Between Housekeeping and Their Health and Safety

Is your workplace a mess? If so, it’s time to get employees to clean up their act, for the sake of their safety and health.

A messy workplace is more than just unsightly. It has the potential to create hazards, including:

  • Fire! Paper garbage, wood shavings, combustible dusts, rags soaked with flammable chemicals—if not disposed of properly, these items can create fire and explosion hazards in the workplace.
  • Falls! Did you know that most workplace falls that result in a reportable injury are falls on the same level? How does that happen? Walkways and work areas that are cluttered become dangerous to walk through, and you—or your coworkers—can slip, trip, and fall.
  • Fungus! In areas that are not kept clean and dry, or where food wastes are disposed of, waste can rot and mold can grow, creating a health hazard.
  • Infestations! Messy areas can become pest harborages—nesting and reproduction areas for everything from cockroaches to rats. These creatures can contribute to allergic reactions and workplace asthma, and they can also carry disease.

Think you have no time to train? Think again. BLR’s 7-Minute Safety Trainer helps you fulfill key OSHA-required training tasks in as little as 7 minutes. Try it at no cost and see!


Keep It Safe! Clean It Up!

Keeping the workplace safe and healthy starts with requiring employees to:

  • Put things away. Put your tools and materials away at the end of your shift or when you switch projects. Throw away trash, making sure to keep general wastes, hazardous wastes, and flammable chemical wastes separated and to place them in appropriate containers.
  • Take out the trash. When your trash container is full, or at the end of your shift (if this is required by your supervisor), take out the trash. This will prevent accumulations of flammable, putrescible, and otherwise problematic waste.
  • Sweep up. If the dust you’re sweeping could be hazardous to breathe, use wet methods or a HEPA vacuum to clean it up.
  • Dust. Don’t let dust accumulate on surfaces. As with sweeping, if the dust could be dangerous to breathe, use wet methods or a HEPA vacuum. Remember to check the top of surfaces that are above your eye level and behind obstructions.
  • Mop up. Take care of damp spots and spills right away if you can.

Effective, 7-minute sessions providing comprehensive safety training at an average cost of $1 a day. Get the details.


Create a Safer and Healthier Workplace

Creating a safer, healthier workplace certainly involves a regular commitment to good housekeeping on the part of management and employees. But it also involves a regular commitment to safety training.

To train employees in a broad range of safety and health topics, savvy safety professionals have for years relied on the BLR® 7-Minute Safety Trainer. This essential training resource allows you to provide concise, memorable training easily and effectively in just a few minutes. Materials are ready-to-use, and each session supplies a detailed trainer’s outline as well as a handout, quiz, and quiz answers to get your points across quickly—and cost-effectively.

All told, this “trainer’s bible” contains 50 prewritten meetings covering almost every aspect of safety you’d want or need to train on, in a format designed to be taught in as little as 7 minutes. Major topics include:

—Confined spaces

—Electrical safety

—Fire safety and emergency response

—HazCom

—Machine guarding and lockout/tagout

—Material handling

—PPE use and care

—Housekeeping/slips, trips, and falls

—and dozens more

Just make as many copies as you need of the included handouts and quizzes, and you’re ready to train.

Equally important is that the program ships new meetings every quarter to respond to new and changed regulations. This service is included in the program price, which averages just over $1 a working day. In fact, this is one of BLR’s most popular safety programs.

If you’d like to personally evaluate 7-Minute Safety Trainer and see how it can build safety awareness, we’ll be happy to send it to you for 30 days on a no-cost, no-obligation trial basis. Just let us know, and we’ll arrange it.

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