Hundreds of deaths occur every year as a direct result of electrical accidents at work. What is even more tragic is that most of these fatalities could be easily avoided. Simple training can teach employees how to work safely with electricity.
Your employees must understand that:
- Normal workplace or household current can be lethal.
- Electrocutions may result from contact with an object as seemingly innocuous as a broken light bulb.
- Overloaded electrical circuits can start fires.
- Electricity will always try to travel to ground, even if it means going through a person.
- Failure to inspect electrical equipment before use can lead to shocks, burns, or even death.
Many workers probably don’t know these things. Most take electricity for granted and rarely think about the hazards. Perhaps that’s why there are so many workplace and home accidents and fires involving electricity.
Need to train on electrical safety? Get both computer-based training (CBT) interactive and PowerPoint® programs in BLR’s Total Training Resource: Electrical Safety. Try it at no cost. Click for details.
Prevent Electrical Blunders
Make sure your workers understand these basic electrical don’ts:
Don’t use …
- Cords or wires with damaged or worn insulation
- Electrical equipment that smokes, sparks, shocks, smells, blows a fuse, or trips a circuit
- Any non-GFCI outlet in a wet area
- Cords or electrical equipment in areas with explosive or flammable materials that are not approved for this specific use
- A cord with a bent or missing grounding plug
- Metal ladders, hard hats, or tools when working near electricity
- Water on an electrical fire
Don’t touch …
- Anything electric when your hands are wet, when you’re standing on a wet floor, or when you’re in contact with a wet surface
- An electrical shock victim
Don’t place …
- Cords where they can be stepped on, run over by material handling equipment, or damaged in any other way
- Cords near heat or water
- Sharp fasteners or nails on electrical cords
Don’t permit …
- Overloaded outlets or circuits
- Loose electrical connections
- Dust or dirt buildup on machinery
- Blind reaches into any areas that may contain energized parts
- Combustible trash on or around electrical equipment or circuits
- Anyone who isn’t trained and qualified to repair electrical equipment
- Attempts to use or start locked or tagged out electrical equipment
- Unauthorized removal or a lockout device or tag
A Program to Keep Workers Safe
At this point, we’d like to put a “plug” in (pun intended) for the program most of this information came from: BLR’s Total Training Resource: Electrical Safety. We’ve seen many training programs on this topic, but never one so comprehensive or user-friendly.
Try Total Training Resource: Electrical Safety at no cost or risk. Click for info.
The heart of the program is a 56-slide computer-based training module that’s both completely self-directed and interactive. Trainees drag and drop; move answers around physically on the screen; identify workers doing dumb, dangerous moves; and take tests that don’t let them complete the module until they’ve learned it. When they do, they can print out their own certificate of achievement. And they can do it all whether or not you are present.
In addition, the term “total” in the name reflects a vault full of supplementary material, starting with a complete and customizable PowerPoint program for group or supervised learning. Both the CBT and PowerPoint are then enhanced by exercises, handouts, trainer’s notes, sign-in sheets, and more—plus the complete 29 CFR 1910 and 1926 regs on electrical safety, in readable type, and a plain-English analysis of exactly how to comply.
We strongly recommend this program, but you can judge it for yourself by trying it with your own workers for a month. Click here and we’ll arrange it. You just might be “shocked” (in a good way) by how much they learn.
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In an emergency your workers have to respond fast and effectively. There’s no time for second-guessing or asking questions. Employees must be properly trained in emergency response long before the day they have to act.