Lockout/Tagout

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Thu 8 May 2008

A Typical Day In The Life of An EH&S Manager

Posted by Allan under Safety , Compliance , Training , Hazardous Materials , Equipment , OSHA , First Aid/CPR/AED , PPE , Policies & Procedures , Lockout/Tagout , Record Keeping , Machine Guarding , Safety Audit , Safety Meeting
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A typical day in the life of the EH&S manager might go something like this:


Get in the office at 7 AM and go over all the previous days reports about any incident(s) that occurred.  Next you get that cup of coffee to spill over all those reports.  Now you check out the 50 or so E-mails of which at least 30 require a response.  Now it is time to walk the facility and do a short audit to make sure the people are wearing their PPE.  Go back and check more e-mails, and go over the budget for this month.  It’s 9AM and time for your first managers meeting of the day.  You report on 1 incident and what is happening to the employee.  Now back to the office to write your agenda for the weekly safety meeting and go over the OSHA 300 log.  After a short break you need to go over training records to see who needs what training and when can you get it done. Time to start designing a hazardous materials training class for new employeesas some of your MSDS sheets have changed.  Lunch, and then back to designing the training class you use to outsource, but not in this year’s budget.   Call coming in from the floor about a machine-guarding problem (no one hurt).  Have to go on the floor with maintenance to check the machine (lockout/tagout), they need it running for the production line.  Another call on the Nextel that employee requires minor first aid.  Go back to the office to call supervisors to schedule training, but hey are NOT happy to have to take people away from production.  Your boss calls and wants a report about safety to give to his/her boss.  Day almost over, you go back and check on machine to make sure it is properly guarded and find some flammable hazardous materials left out unattended.  Talk with supervisors about this and how to put them away correctly. 5:30PM, time to leave the building, but have to keep Nextel on just in case.  Oh no, I forgot to get the safety meeting agenda put together, well tomorrow is another day.

Here is who I was today:

  • A manager
  • An IT person
  • Asafety person
  • Administrative assistant
  • A finance person
  • An instructional designer
  • A maintenance person
  • A medic
  • An arbitrator
  • An employee
  • Oh Ya! a family person too!!!


So what do you think, sound something like your day?  How many other jobs do you do that I left out?  Send a comment and we will compile a complete (as possible) of all the jobs a safety manager has to do.  Let’s hear from you.    

 

 

Thu 15 Nov 2007

Does Your Employee Understand The Training?

Posted by Allan under Safety , Compliance , Training , OSHA , Respiratory , Lockout/Tagout , Bloodborne Pathogens
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Training Class.pngRequirements for employers to train employees exist throughout U.S. OSHA standards. However, some employers and, apparently, some OSHA inspectors, are not aware that training must be conducted in a manner that the employee can understand.

OSHA’s general policy is that if an employee receives job instructions in a language other than English, training and information must also be conveyed in that language. Similarly, says OSHA, if the employee’s vocabulary is limited, the training must account for that limitation. Furthermore, if employees are not literate, telling them to read training materials will not satisfy the employer’s training obligation.

“As a general matter, employers are expected to realize that if they customarily need to communicate work instruction or other workplace information to employees at a certain vocabulary level or in a language other than English, they will also need to provide safety and health training to employees in the same manner,” says OSHA.

OSHA adds that its training provisions contain a variety of specific requirements to ensure that employees are comprehending instruction. For example, standards covering lockout/tagout, respiratory protection, and bloodborne pathogens each require that employers take measures to ascertain the level to which the employee has comprehended the safety provisions.

In its instructions to inspectors, OSHA states, “If a reasonable person would conclude that the employer had not conveyed the training to its employees in a manner they were capable of understanding, then the violation may be cited as serious.”