Mesa County-based businesses to get $1.5 million in dividends
Counting the latest distribution, Pinnacol has returned $320 million to Colorado businesses since 2016 — about 9 percent of premiums. Pinnacol returned $70 million in 2020 and what was at the time a lockdown near the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kalin said the company also has reduced customer rates by more than 32 percent since 2016.
Pinnacol Assurance has helped businesses adapt to pandemic-related hazards while also helping them remain focused on such common workplace hazards as slips, falls and unsafe lifting practices, he said.
“A strong safety culture and proactive management of employees’ safety and well-being can literally put money back in a business’ pocket,” he said. “This is not a nice-to-have or something to be focused on during boom times exclusively.”
Ep.69 Do safety in design processes change the design?
Topics:
Is safety and design effective? Risk shuffling. Russell’s key findings. The hierarchy of controls. The proper use of safety and design. Evaluating design to minimize risk. Practical advice from Russell.
Quotes:
“We don’t always have opportunities in safety science to get some objective artifacts…”
“I’ve never heard of a designer saying they’ve got plenty of time and a ton of budget, so let’s, you know, get down and optimize for safety.”
“And if we start by listing the operations before we list the hazards or risks, then we’re going to be in a much better place.”
Crew safety: Lesson from the aviation industry
The safety and wellbeing of both crew and vessel are the primary responsibility of any skipper.
Without exception every crew leader will attest to this and yet it is nearly impossible to find a single MAIB (Marine Accident Investigation Branch) report that doesn’t attribute a safety failure to some degree of human error and breakdown in communication, sometimes with catastrophic results. So, what are we in the sailing world doing wrong?
To answer this question it pays to look at the aviation industry, which has acknowledged and addressed the impact of ‘human factors’ for almost 40 years.
With a single passenger aircraft carrying up to 800 people, eliminating error is absolutely critical in flight.
In 1981 United Airlines introduced Crew Resource Management (CRM) training, to try and improve safety by focusing on interpersonal communication, leadership and decision making in the cockpit of an airliner. The CRM model proved so successful it has since become ingrained in aviation safety culture.
GENERAL SHEET METAL WORKS INC. Company overcomes 2020 challenges with improved safety protocols
In September 2020, as the world faced the challenges of COVID-19, wildfires and hazardous air quality from the smoke presented a new level of safety concerns. Safety Manager Raymon Brison was charged with figuring out how to run the fabrication shop at General Sheet Metal Works Inc. safely. The company quickly implemented a Respiratory Protection Program and had a stock of 3M 6500 series half-face respirators stored away. The leadership team reviewed all safety options, including closing outside air dampers, adding air cleaning HEPA portable units and using respirators. “Working our plan and planning our work as a team was the key to ensuring everyone’s safety,” Brison said. “Special thanks to Respexam for getting all the medical evaluations complete in record time to allow the next step of fit-testing on over 30 employees. That was a critical step in our Respiratory Protection Program that allowed us to safely operate, keeping our clients satisfied.” General Sheet Metal Works’ safety culture is imbedded from the first day of employment and starts with “See Something Say Something.” It gauges its safety culture through feedback from anonymous employee surveys.
New Report Details Continued High Serious Injury Rate in Transportation & Warehousing … Developing a culture of safety — In addition to contractor characteristics and incident-specific data, information on safety culture and employee and contractor perceptions at an organization are key leading indicators for SIFs. In fact, 75 percent of the surveyed hiring clients believe improving safety culture and value alignment is an effective approach to reducing SIFs. …
Barcelona will launch a new clinical trial on March 27. It will do it at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, welcoming 5,000 people for a concert of the Love Of Lesbian group without safety distance. An act in which, despite not having anti-COVID measures, all attendees will be forced to pass a series of preliminary checks, as an antigen test or taking the temperature before entering the room.
This was announced this Friday by the directors of different festivals such as Primavera Sound -with its 2021 edition already canceled-, Sonar, Cruïlla, Canet Rock or Vida, during an event at the Estadi Olímpic de Barcelona. There were also present the highest representatives of Health and Culture of the Generalitat and the mayor of the city, Ada Colau, supporting the safe culture on which so much has been insisted these months ago.
The concert last December: almost 500 attendees and no contagion
This new essay comes after the great results obtained with a concert of almost 500 people in the Sala Apolo. It took place last December and, as reported by Dr. Josep Maria Llibre, from the Germans Trias Hospital, the trial ended without contagion among its 463 attendees. The best result that could have been given and to the surprise of those who studied the case.
As detailed in the published statement on the website of the Festivals for Safety Culture, This clinical trial as a “pilot concert” at the Palau Sant Jordi will be carried out with a “subsequent control crossing data from attendees with the public health system”.
Building Strong Safety Culture with Human Factors Training
Safety Culture may be one of the hottest, yet least understood, topics in aviation safety. What does it mean? Often when we talk about aviation safety, we’re talking about physical safety. We’re talking about transporting people or boxes from A to B without incident.
But a lack of incident isn’t the only metric for a good safety culture.
Whitesell leads Braskem’s Marcus Hook site during COVID-driven ‘live in’ … Commitment to safety
According to Whitesell, the Marcus Hook facility has a strong safety culture, with a dedication to health and process safety.
“Our safety culture has many aspects, including structured individual and team activities, management and execution of procedures, review and maintenance of our processes and safety systems, and team member participation in all activities,” she said. “To continually evolve our safety culture and dive deeper into preventive measures, we are applying the concept of ‘human reliability’ to understand what process or system may lead to an error.”
Ep.66 What is the full story of just culture (part 3)?
Topics:
Creating a solid reporting system. At what point does something become an incident? Voluntary vs. mandatory reporting. When your organization is facing prosecution. How reporting gets stifled. The problem with penalties. Looking after all parties involved in incidents. The outcomes safety professionals want. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“I think this is the struggle with those sort of systems, is that if they are used frequently, then it becomes a very normal thing…but that means that people are using that channel instead of using the line management as their channel…”
“I think unless we work for a regulator, we need to remind ourselves that it’s not actually our job, either, to run the prosecution or even to help the prosecution.”
“If you think your system is fair, then you should be proud of explaining to people exactly how it works.”
DB Cargo UK achieve the ISO 45001 standard across three UK sites
DB Cargo UK operations at three depots, Crewe IEMD, Stoke WMD and Toton TMD, have been under observation for the past couple of years to work out where improvements in health & safety and risk management procedures could be made.
Teams at these sites have been working hard on assessment results, leading to an increase from OHAS 18001 to ISO 45001.
This effort has not been made easy with COVID-19’s impact, but despite this, operations in rolling stock and locomotive maintenance, and repair of many trains in the UK are now completed with the new standard in place.
National Maintenance Manager Raj Basi said: “Considering the restrictions that have been in place over the past 12 months, this is a fantastic achievement and will give our customers the assurance they need that the maintenance activities we carry out on their behalf are being done safely and in line with all our legal requirements,”
“The ISO 45001 standard means that going forward Maintenance colleagues at all levels in the business will have a much greater involvement in the identification and management of health and safety risks through greater consultation and participation.
RelatedPosts DB Cargo UK achieve the ISO 45001 standard across three UK sites 13th February 2021 DB Cargo to support National Apprenticeship Week 2021 4th February 2021
“Strong leadership and giving colleagues a greater voice will ensure we continue to develop a safety culture rooted in local, grassroots experience as well as industry best practice,” added Raj.
How Estancia Valley Solid Waste Authority Bolstered its Safety Record
Management was working on instilling a safety culture before it began assigning special recognition, with its earliest efforts being a form that employees fill out to identify job hazards they may see in the field or in the office. Managers do a job analysis for each employee, based on the form responses, every three months.
And they point out when they see a potential safety issue based on how employees fill out the form. Supervisors and a representative from each department come together for safety meetings to discuss identified concerns.
“We include representatives from each department because supervisors may have one idea, but we can get more perspective from employees of what some of their issues are on the job,” Cabber says.
The tiers for the incentive program were actually created at these meetings.
The Authority’s managers believe that incentives help bring about culture change because they make people more aware.
Fostering an electrical safety culture
At the end of each year, it is an annual tradition for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to release the top 10 most cited violations of the year across all industries. However, the year 2020 has proved to be anything but traditional, and the final numbers have yet to be tabulated. Early reports have indicated that the number of violations for Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) have exceeded last year’s; however, until these numbers can be verified by OSHA, we can analyze previous years’ data where the number of violations and their deviation has been minimal. Veteran safety consultants urge employers to keep an eye out for the annual OSHA Top 10 report. This list is one of the best starting points on the path toward fostering a robust safety culture, as one safety consultant advises. “Minimally, an employer should have the responsibility of asking, ‘Do any of these Top 10 affect me?’ Because this is the easiest place if our friends from OSHA should come to visit,” says JoAnn Dankert, senior safety consultant at the National Safety Council. “I think a portion of why we see these over and over again is there’s a lot of parts to many of the standards, which makes it easier for OSHA to cite us if we missed something, and some parts take time to implement,” says Dankert. “They aren’t necessarily bad, but they do take resources, and for smaller organizations, people might be doing HR and safety, or they’re doing facility maintenance and safety. Maybe they’re the person, the admin, that sits in the lobby and they’re trying to do safety on the side.”
Registration open for Inaugural Campus Safety Summit
The Campus Safety Culture Steering Committee at Northern Arizona University is hosting the inaugural Campus Safety Summit in a virtual format beginning at 8:15 a.m. on Feb. 18. The event will share information on NAU’s efforts to build a stronger safety culture, help all members of the campus community understand their role in safety and inform about the many opportunities to participate in active safety programming.
The morning webinar session, open to all NAU community members, will begin with remarks from President Rita Cheng followed by a brief explanation of NAU’s Campus Safety Culture initiative. Heather Nash, director of Employee Assistance and Wellness, will close the session with a presentation on the importance of sleep quality and how that impacts wellness and relates to safety.
The afternoon session of the event switches to project-specific workshops. Participants will receive Zoom meeting invitations to cover topics such as tracking purchases and chemical e-inventories, job safety roles and responsibilities, stakeholder communication and promoting stewardship through sustainable lab practices.
Focus Forward: 3 Tips to Foster Trust, Transparency and Quality … Acknowledge the shift in expectations of businesses So much happened this year that made businesses take a hard look at their priorities and operating assumptions. We’ve seen so many companies step up in a big way. From making Net Zero commitments, to reinforcing a safety culture, to setting new diversity & inclusion goals, to extending new workforce benefits and flexible working arrangements—whether it falls under the ‘E’ the ‘S’ or the ‘G,’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have really come into focus. As a next step, companies should think about how best to make commitments, measure these impactful non-financial changes, and where and how to effectively communicate what they’ve done on a go-forward basis.
DPR Warns Against Illegal Sales Of LPG In Delta tribuneonlineng.com/dpr-warns… … Auwalu urged the stakeholders to develop dynamic safety culture in order to carry out their operations safely noting that safety could be achieved through compliance to the rules and regulations of the regulatory agency.
“Compliance to the rules and regulations will promote safe operations and also maximise your profit. Safety culture cannot be bought, you craft it your self.
“DPR is committed to engaging all stakeholders to promote safety culture and continue to comply with the petroleum laws, regulations and guidelines in the Oil and Gas Industry,” Auwalu said. …
Health and hygiene protocols guide produced for travel firms
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has partnered with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) to produce guidelines for integrating health and hygiene protocols into company culture at travel firms.
The From protocols to a safety culture guidelines follow on from the health and safety protocols WTTC released in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and are intended to help travel companies build consumer confidence around their health and hygiene practices, so that they will feel comfortable travelling once lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Covid-19 hygiene measures
Maintaining confidence in your workplace cleaning during coronavirus
Talking toolkits: unpicking Covid-19 return-to-work advice
The guidance looks at common health and hygiene pitfalls, provides a “toolkit” for managers – including sections on infection control and Covid-19 risk assessments – and offers specific advice for managers in customer-facing roles, including handling those who deliberately flout restrictions and controls.
Ep.62 What are the benefits of job safety analysis?
EPISODE NOTES
It’s difficult to give an introduction to this topic, given that a JSA is such an amorphous topic. Generally speaking, we’re talking about job or task-hazard analysis; the idea behind task-hazard analysis is that you break the task down into steps and figure out what controls are necessary to keep the task safe.
Tune in to hear us clarify the idea of and benefits from job safety analysis.
Topics:
The lack of standard terminology. Why some claims from JSA’s are implausible. The structure of the study covered in the paper. Why the analysis in the study is more of a comparison. The overconfident optimism of the researchers. How JSA’s clarify worker’s duties. Who makes the decisions. Hazard awareness. Loss prevention. Practical takeaways.
The country that faltered after the coronavirus first broke out in Wuhan has now successfully tamped down the virus and they don’t want to let it spread again. China mandates all incoming travellers go into a strict two-week quarantine. Those arriving from European countries, which many in China perceive as unwilling or unable to control the outbreak, are particularly suspect.
In Sweden, where I spent the summer months, only the neurotic seemed to worry about Covid-19. Only once did I see a group of medical workers screening people at a shopping centre. It was for head lice.
Ep.61 Is Swiss cheese helpful for understanding accident causation? safetyofwork.com/episodes/…
EPISODE NOTES
The article we reference provides a historical account of the “Swiss Cheese Model”. Since there are many versions of this same diagram, we thought it best to look back through time and see the evolution of this particular safety model.
Topics:
Why the model represents the presence of folklore in safety. The methods used in Good and Bad Reasons. The cognitive processes that lead to errors. Whether the model represents accident causation appropriately. A defense of the model.
Quotes:
“He’s just trying to understand this broad range of errors and sort of work with the assumption that there must be different cognitive processes.”
“It was initially, sort of, only published once in a medical journal as an oversimplification of his own diagram.”
“The other critique is that the model lacks guidance.”
“ ‘I never intended to produce a scientific model’ is the worst excuse possible that an academic can give in defense of their own model.”
A proactive safety tool, AFCMRS helps commanders assess the safety climate of their units through anonymously surveying member’s attitudes and perceptions. These surveys can be conducted at any echelon in the Air Force and Space Force from the squadron to the major command or field command.
“The AFCRMS survey helps leaders find hidden safety risks, inform mitigations, monitor changes, or affirm a safe culture,” said Col. Geoffrey Ewing, chief of the Human Factors Division and a physician of aerospace and occupational medicine. “Airman and Guardians want to be safe, compliant and productive by nature. A safe working environment for them directly results in increased productivity and trust in leadership.”
The AFCMRS program hails from a solid history beginning in 2007. In the last five years, 4,724 total unit surveys were completed consisting of 289,929 individual participants. There were 28,854 aircrew members; 55,064 maintainers; and 88,922 other support personnel accounting for the majority of the career fields surveyed.
Blue Diamond Reaches 5 Million Hours Without Lost Time Incident
The company held a socially distant celebration as they marked the safety milestone. Company leaders attest to the culture as well as strong training programs focusing on the well-being of workers. President and CEO Mark Jansen remarked in a recent press release that the facility’s workforce is dedicated to personal responsibility and continuous improvement and that “safety is a year-round priority.”
The company adds that safety programs at Salida include grassroots efforts like “Safety Culture Teams” and says 90% of team members have achieved OSHA 10-hour training. Salida achieved the safety benchmark even amidst an expansion that added a warehouse allowing for 50 million pounds of additional almond storage capacity. Jansen says the milestone represents the company’s “commitment to a Zero Harm culture.”
Implementing a sustainable process safety culture
For Eastman Chemical Co., a “zero-incident mindset” is essential to safe, reliable and quality production.
In their book, “Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life,” Jason Riley and Patrick Van Horne describe the importance of identifying potential issues – also known as “bangs” – early to prevent bad things from happening. While they talk about prevention from combat perspectives, Eastman team members talk about prevention from business and operations perspectives, where the “bangs” can be explosions, fires, releases, injuries or worse – the process safety world.
Getting “left of bang” means moving from a reactive mode to become relentlessly proactive. Moving a business from “fix” – reacting post-incident – to “prevent” requires more than awareness and better tools, processes or technologies. It requires purposeful, informed behaviors. It’s a culture change. This article describes Eastman’s journey toward an improved process safety culture.
[Demystifying Ship Recycling: Safe removal and recycling of batteries recovered during Ship Recycling[ (https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/demystifying-ship-recycling-safe-removal-and-recycling-of-batteries-recovered-during-ship-recycling/)
Batteries are used as an emergency source of electric power on ships of all types. Lead is usually found in lead-acid batteries. Lead is considered as heavy metal and correct handling of it is essential. Similarly, contact with acid is hazardous to human health. End-of-Life vessels are delivered to the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) compliant recycling facilities in India with the Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) part I, II, and III. Batteries are listed, located, and quantified in the IHM. As per ship specific Ship Recycling Plan, the SOPs are prepared to remove and dispose of these batteries. Only trained workers are allowed to remove the batteries. Workers are given adequate PPE, consisting of hardhat, safety shoes, gloves, overalls, glasses, and masks. Batteries that contain acids and lead are isolated from the electrical power cables, transported, and stored at designated areas in recycling facilities by trained workers. The designated area is well ventilated. The workers are made aware of the possibility of rapid charge release from the batteries and their heavyweights. Safe manual lifting practices are followed. Extra care is taken not to cause any physical damage to the batteries to avoid any acid splash (electrolyte). The workers are also trained to handle acid spills and first aid measures in case of contact is made with the acid.
Source: GMS The batteries are sold to the authorized recyclers for recycling purposes and the battery submission manifests are maintained at the recycling yards. The increasing safety culture and strict compliance to the SOPs at the HKC compliant recycling facilities are admirable. Kiran Thorat is a Sustainable Ship & Offshore Recycling Executive at GMS, where he looks after sustainable ship recycling projects. Kiran believes that Sustainable Recycling is an integral part of Sustainable Shipping and a notable example of a circular economy. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Marine Engineering and Research Institute (DMET), India, and a Master’s Degree in Energy, Trade, and Finance from Cass Business School, London.
Ep. 59 What is the full story behind safety I and safety II (Part 3)?
Topics:
A recap of the chapters we’ve covered thus far. Chapter 6 Dealing with complexity, The role of resilience. Chapter 7 Correct and incorrect functions. Determining the cause of accidents in complex systems. The faulty definition of Safety II. The purpose of Safety II. Chapter 8 Recognizing, monitoring, and controlling performance variability. Why Hollnagel criticizes Safety I. Methods and techniques. Chapter 9 Hollnagel’s predictions about the creation of Safety III. Practical takeaways from the book. Quotes:
“So you think of Safety I just as it protects against lots of specific things, but it doesn’t protect against generic things that we haven’t specifically protected against.”
“The fact is…we can make some fairly reliable and valid conclusions about what happened leading up to something going wrong.”
“I think all theorists we should take seriously and not literally.”
“We are comprised of 12 Subject Matter Experts (SME) who work to encourage, educate, and enforce Department of Defense and Occupational Safety and Health Association standards,” said Lt. Julian Krusely, the Nimitz Industrial Hygiene Officer. “We wear a green ball cap to promote a visible safety culture and the making of safe choices both on and off duty throughout the ship.”
Each safety SME oversees and surveys air and safety afloat programs, and leverages divisional safety petty officers and squadron safety representatives in order to teach and enforce safety standards to empower Sailors and Marines to make safe choices.
“Our team roves the ship looking for general hazards such as proper wear of personal protective equipment, electrical safety discrepancies, respirator protection, hearing protection, fall protection and fall hazards, hazardous material safety, and hazard identification,” said Senior Chief Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Handling) Anthony Pena, Nimitz’ Safety Department’s Leading Chief Petty Officer.
While underway, it is Safety’s job to provide a constant presence at every major evolution to be the extra set of eyes and to ensure the proper procedures are being carried out.
Although Nimitz Safety department assumes responsibility for training Sailors how to be safe, it is the responsibility of every Sailor, Marine, and civilian aboard to take accountability for safely carrying out procedures, maintenance and daily duties.
“Safety is everyone’s responsibility,” said Pena. “We want every Sailor and Marine to safely follow the correct procedures and maintenance requirements and have a questioning attitude when performing daily duties. If it doesn’t feel right or it looks unsafe, it’s most likely not. You can choose right. Choose SAFE!”