West Bend’s Safety Tips

OSHA recently published a letter of interpretation on the use of headphones in the workplace. In this podcast I’ll talk about this letter, as well as the implications it has for other sources of music.

While I often speak about safety and safe workplaces, I realized I never defined either of these terms or what they mean to me. Since this podcast series is about workplace safety, I think it’s time to tackle this fundamental but challenging topic.

OSHA’s use of the general duty clause can be subjective. It requires employers to provide each employee with a workplace that’s free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. For OSHA to prove such a condition exists, there are four elements they must establish for a successful citation. This podcast will cover these elements.

Did you know OSHA can issue a citation for any serious hazard, even if it isn’t covered by a specific OSHA standard? OSHA can even require training in circumstances where OSHA doesn’t even have a training standard. This podcast will cover OSHA’s general duty clause – its most comprehensive standard covering workplace safety.

Safety talks are often used in organizations to enhance the safety program. Too often, however, they’re nothing more than busy work for the supervisors who read them and the employees who listen to them - resulting in no improvement in workplace safety. This podcast will help you make safety talks a positive addition to your safety program instead of a wasted opportunity.

Some employers feel that if their employees aren’t exposed to a hazard, they can’t be given an OSHA citation. This isn’t true, however, in a multiple-employer situation. In this podcast, we’ll review OSHA’s Multiple Employer Citation Policy – the process for determining which employers can receive citations on multi-employer worksites.

At this time of year, many businesses are establishing annual goals. When it comes to safety, however, too many businesses rely on lagging indicators. In this podcast, we’ll discuss leading and lagging indicators and provide you with suggestions to identify the best indicators to achieve your safety objectives.

Did you know that almost half of carpenters are injured by a nail gun in the first three years of training? What if there was a simple way to cut pneumatic nail gun or pneumatic stapler injuries by more than half? There is! In this podcast I’ll talk about how you can reduce the potential for pneumatic nail and staple gun injuries, whether in the workplace or at home.

Did you know humans really can’t multitask? Even if you think you can safely text, listen to podcasts, watch TV, or review emails while driving, you can’t. This isn’t multitasking; it’s having your mind switch focus between two tasks and your performance on both suffers. This podcast will discuss how the workplace often requires multitasking and switching focus, and how it causes workplace productivity and safety to suffer.

If you don’t accommodate employees who’ve suffered work-related injuries, or you don’t engage employees in an interactive process when considering your obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a recent 3.3-million-dollar judgment against an employer in Illinois should be a warning.

I see too many employee injuries that result from pulling trash bags out of trash cans and throwing trash into dumpsters. In this podcast, I’ll review the problem and what you can do to eliminate these costly injuries from your workplace.

How often do you think about your emergency evacuation rendezvous locations? Too often we’re just focused on getting employees out of the building so we can account for them as quickly and accurately as possible. This podcast is focused on additional considerations for your evacuation meeting points.

The lockout/tagout standard, or the control of hazardous energy standard, requires periodic inspection.  Many employers believe this is just a review of their written lockout/tagout compliance program.  In reality, the periodic inspection required by OSHA must be much more in-depth.  This podcast will review the requirements of this inspection process.

Are employees in your company familiar with the phrase “lockout/tagout”? Do they think the terms are interchangeable? If so, we may have to clear up a misunderstanding. In this podcast, we’ll discuss whether tagout is permitted and if you should remove the word from your vocabulary.

Over the past 12 months, OSHA has begun to use drones to conduct workplace inspections. In this podcast, we’ll discuss OSHA’s process for the use of drones. We’ll also touch on your rights as an employer, as well as considerations for permitting the use of a drone during an OSHA inspection.

Over the last 20 years, businesses have moved their OSHA compliance training from classroom-based to training-supplemented with VHS or DVD video. Now there’s a big push to move to online training. What does OSHA think about that? I’ll talk about it in this week’s podcast.

As an employer, you have the right to require that OSHA obtain a warrant before they begin an inspection of your facility. Should you? This podcast will cover the pros and cons of requiring a warrant.

I’m often asked if I have suggestions for providing training on responding to incidents of workplace violence, including active shooters. While I can provide suggestions, I am always concerned about the physical injuries and psychological trauma that can arise from poorly constructed training. This webinar primary focuses on the potential harm from this training.

It’s great that you implemented an accident investigation program! Now what was the outcome of your investigation? Unfortunately, many times, blame falls on the employee. In this podcast, we’ll discuss situations in which employees were blamed for the accident, then we’ll focus on corrective actions that help improve the workplace rather than the employee.

Too often employers think of accident investigation as simply reporting a claim to their workers’ compensation carrier. There is much more to accident investigation – most importantly there is the opportunity to change an organization to prevent future accidents from occurring again. This podcast focuses on an accident review process, that when implemented properly will identify corrective actions an organization can take to decrease the potential for employee injury.