Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 22,000 people die annually from overdoses of prescription painkillers, which now contribute to more deaths than all illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Workers who use prescription painkillers—particularly those in safety-sensitive positions such as operating machinery—may be at increased risk for incidents, […]
Overexertion, slips, trips, and falls cause 60 percent of lost-time occupational injuries in the United States and cost employers over $30 billion in direct workers’ compensation costs in 2013. One strategy you can use to control these costly injuries is an effective worksite stretching program. The aging workforce is one factor that increases the likelihood […]
A well-managed program that returns injured workers to their jobs—even in a temporarily reduced capacity—is a win-win for employers and workers. For employers, it reduces the cost of workers’ compensation claims and disability benefits, increases workplace productivity and morale, and decreases turnover. For employees, it can be even more important: A light-duty assignment or appropriate […]
Is your workforce ailing? Maybe one employee who’s out hurt his back cleaning gutters at home, another went ahead and had that elective foot surgery she’d been putting off, and another is out on a workers’ compensation claim after slipping in mud. It would be good to have them back on the payroll doing something […]
Sometimes, two heads are better than one. It ought to be that way with temporary workers, who have essentially two employers, both of whom are supposed to be looking out for their safety. But in practice, miscommunication and poorly defined responsibilities lead to gaps in worker training, hazard identification, and supervision that have served to […]
Slips, trips, and falls (STFs) are notorious workplace hazards that cause a lot of injuries and add to costs, productivity losses, and worker absences. Take action against STFs with these 5 strategies.
Production worries. Procurement worries. Personnel worries. Personal worries. With so much to worry about, it can be difficult sometimes to get management, supervisors, and workers to focus on your main concern: their safety. So when there’s a near miss in the workplace, don’t miss your chance—for a brief time, they’ll all be thinking about safety.
Yesterday, we looked beyond using recordable injuries, illnesses, and workers’ compensation claims as ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your safety program, finding numerical ways to evaluate safety communication in the workplace. Today, we’ll look at three more metrics you can measure that go beyond the Form 300 in giving you information about how your […]
Is your safety program working? How do you know? Tracking injuries, illnesses, and workers’ compensation claims is a good start, but there are other indicators that can give you a broader, deeper, clearer picture of how your safety program is functioning.
One way to open your training session is with the eye-opening statistics given in the “Why It Matters” section! Also inform trainees that the top 5 industries for eye injuries are: