Have you every heard of Safety Toolbox Talks?

If you are part of the safety team for your company or organization, this is a free safety resource exchange for safety professional.  The site give you all kinds of information and it is FREE!

From their website, “Safety Toolbox Talks was started in 2007 as a portal for safety professionals to share and exchange free safety topic resources . . . specifically Toolbox Topics, Toolbox Talks and other free safety resources. If you’re like so many companies these days, the daily safety meeting has proven very effective in reminding employees about the importance of safety in their daily tasks.”

Safety Toolbox Talks offers a wide  variety of topic which include:

• toolbox talks
• home safety
• driver safety
• safety videos
• safety news
• OSHA quick takes
• and much more.

With the safety budget shrinking, we need a place to get information and resources with as little cost as possible.  So check out Safetytoolboxtalks.com.  I think you will find it helpful and informative.

Strains and sprains from manual materials handling are significant causes of workplace injury. Although lifting, placing, carrying, holding, and lowering are involved in manual materials handling (the principal cause of compensable work injuries), Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that four out of five of these injuries were to the lower back, and that three out of four occurred while the employee was lifting an object.

Management and workers should both be involved with analyzing and assessing manual materials handling job tasks for risk of injury. When a manual materials handling task has been assessed as a risk, the first control option should be redesign (i.e., redesigning the task so that the risk is completely eliminated). If this is not possible, the risk should be reduced through the use of mechanical aids and training.

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During the past few months the country has focused most of its attention on our economy.   As the economy worsens certain parts of business and manufacturing are affected first.  Training and safety are part of these affected business units because they are considered non-revenue producing areas.   Safety professionals MUST (as OSHA says) be able to show how their department affects the bottom-line revenue for their company/organization.  You need to show the features and benefits of a good safety program and do it now.  If you wait too long it might be too late. 

The first step is to list every part of your safety program’s benefits and what bottom-line it produces.  The most obvious ones are the reduction in worker comp cost, increased productivity, and reduced health care cost.  Another interesting statistic is the average cost of an injury.  It is estimated (National Safety Council) between $20,000 - $25,000.  If your company operates at 5% profit margin you need and additional $625,000 in sales to break even.  This is a lot of sales for many companies.  Reducing incidents saves money that goes to the bottom-line. 

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 As so often happens when the economy turns downward, the non-revenue generating positions are the first to go.  So your company has decided to downsize your department from 3 safety people to 1.  In the past, your department was able to handle the various functions of training, audits, JSA, testing, first aid, an occasional hazardous spill, and more without problems. 

Now you are alone and you decide it is time form your first safety team to help out.  The safety team will give you more eyes and ideas on helping create a safety culture. But how do you start?  Developing a written plan or proposal is a good starting place.  First decide what you want the team to do and how they will do it. 

• How often will the team meet?
• Who will lead the team?
• What will be the teams goals?
• Who should be on the team?
• How will measure results?
• Can the team be empowered?

Presenting you proposal to your manager will help get the ball rolling.  Asking for volunteers is always a good way, but not too effective.  I always encourage people to start at the top.  If you can get the CEO/President or another senior manager to join the team, that will encourage others to follow. 

At your first meeting have a written agenda on what the team will do and how it will accomplish the goals.  Give EVERYONE a chance for input.  I always suggest that different members lead the meetings.  This gets everyone involved.  Start you meetings on time and keep them short (everyone has their regular job to do).  Some suggestions on an agenda are:

• Old business
• New incidents
• Root cause analysis
• JSA
• Ideas for safety awareness programs and/or training
• Any new additional business

After the team starts to develop is own identity, empower them to make some decisions with your guidance.  You can also try some team building events.  These exercises often develop the team into a more cohesive unit. 

Safety teams can be a great asset to your department and the company’s moral.  Build an effective team and everyone wins.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
 
 

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

20th Annual Chicagoland Safety & Health Conference
September 15, 2008 - September 18, 2008
We would like to take this opportunity to announce
our Special Pre-Conference Workshops!
 
Advanced Training Techniques (full day, Monday, 9/15/08)
OSHA 7100 Machine Guarding (full day, Tuesday, 9/16/08)
Electrical Update Course (full day, Tuesday, 9/16/08)
and
1/2 day offerings on Tuesday, September 16:
Preparing for CIH Exam (p.m.), Indoor Environmental Quality (a.m.) and Women in Safety (Panel, a.m.)
and
OSHA 10-Hour in General Industry, Monday & Tuesday, 9/15 and 9/16
 
Please visit our conference website to learn more about these offerings, and to browse the many topics covered in the two-day conference on September 17 and 18, 2008!
  
Many topics to choose from, including sessions on:
General Industry Safety,  Industrial Hygiene, Construction Safety, and
Safety and Health Management
 
Also, back by popular demand:  VPP/SHARP Conference within a Conference!
 
Please join us on September 15 - 18, 2008 at the NIU-Naperville Campus!
 
  Register today!!  Please visit the conference website at www.chisafetyconf.org to browse our exciting topics and to obtain conference information! 
 
Sincerely,
20th Annual Chicagoland Safety & Health Conference Committee
 
©2008 Copyright, The National Safety Education Center
Engineering and Technology Outreach, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Northern Illinois University
All rights reserved. No information may be duplicated without permission from NIU-CEET Outreach.
 
 
 

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.