Ep.25 Why don’t workers use reporting systems?
Topics:
Discomfort with non-technical topics. Why some people are seasoned users of reporting systems. Pride in being a fixer. Feedback loops in reporting systems. Questioning the value of given instructions. Why qualitative data can be helpful.
Quotes:
“If people were very seasoned users of the reporting system, we’d want to really understand, ‘how did they become seasoned users?’ ”
“A lot of professionals: That’s where they derive their professional pride, from being able to fix problems.”
“[Reporting systems] are complex sociotechnical constructs.”
Natural Gas Utilities Lead Charge on Achieving Exemplary Employee and Vehicular Safety
Washington, D.C. - The American Gas Association (AGA) is pleased to recognize a number of natural gas utility and transmission companies for their outstanding commitment to employee and vehicular safety in 2019. The selection was based upon the companies that submitted their annual safety statistical data for calendar year 2019, based upon OSHA Recordable Injuries and Illnesses and Reportable Vehicle Incidents.
‘Now more than ever it is important to recognize our industry’s commitment to the safe delivery of natural gas,’ said AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert. ‘Promoting safe practices and a safety culture that holds the protection of customers, communities and employees at the highest level is essential, and our Safety Award recipients are leaders in upholding and exemplifying this at its best. I applaud their staunch commitment to safety and congratulate them for this outstanding recognition.’
[Naval Safety Center Lessons Learned Division Wins Navy League Safety Award] [https://www.dvidshub.net/news/368669/naval-safety-center-lessons-learned-division-wins-navy-league-safety-award]
NORFOLK (April 17, 2020) – Mr. Christopher Rew and Mr. David Deuel from Naval Safety Center’s (NAVSAFECEN) Lessons Learned Division have been awarded the Navy League of the United States’ Adm. Vern Clark and Gen. James L. Jones Safety Award for fiscal year (FY) 2019. The annual award recognizes innovative safety efforts of individuals, units or organizations that have reduced fatalities and mishaps among Department of Navy Sailors, Marines and civilians and have significantly improved the Navy and Marine Corps safety culture.
“Our honorees exemplify a culture of safety through their commitment to a vision that decreases mishaps and fatalities for our Navy and Marine Corps,” said Mike Stevens, executive director of the Navy League of the United States and retired 13th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy.
NAVSAFECEN’s Lessons Learned Division collects, analyzes and shares findings from mishaps, hazards, assessments and other fleet engagements. Its lessons learned and sanitized safety investigation products are distributed electronically to Navy and Marine Corps safety professionals around the world. The goal is to prevent mishaps, preserve combat readiness, save lives and improve mission readiness across the force.
While female and minority science PhDs’ ideas are more novel they’re often overlooked
Women and non-white researchers offer science more original concepts but their contributions are less likely to be adopted by others or lead to academic positions, a new US study has found.
A ‘diversity paradox’ has been noted before: diversity breeds innovation, yet under-represented groups that diversify organisations have less successful careers within them. Now researchers from Stanford University show for the first time that the paradox holds for scientists as well.
A team led by Bas Hofstra and Daniel McFarland amassed data on around 1.2 million PhD recipients in the US between 1977 and 2015, following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. They used census and social security data to infer students’ gender and whether they belonged to minorities under-represented in science.
To measure novelty and innovation, the team used language processing techniques, such as machine learning and text analysis, to identify terms in PhD theses that represented ‘meaningful concepts’. Next, they identified when pairs of concepts were first related to one another. By adding up the number of these original, related ideas within each thesis, they developed a measure of novelty. The next stage was to calculate how much of this novel thinking had any impact. They measured how often a thesis’s new linked ideas were taken up in other documents.
Sanitation workers on front line of crisis
Sanitation workers are one of our more valuable assets to keeping our communities clean and green.
Dealing with all the trash society produces is a dirty and dangerous job even in normal times. During a global health pandemic, it gets even riskier. According to USA Today, refuse and recyclable material collectors is No. 5 on the Top 25 most dangerous jobs list.
Garbage collectors and other sanitation workers are selfless in their desire to perform an essential service despite the potential high risks to themselves.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, each person in the United States produces an average of 4.5 pounds of solid waste every day. During quarantine conditions, this number is likely to double.
This means heavier loads as well as the potential for exposure to COVID-19 contaminated trash. A single worker on a residential route comes in contact with the garbage of hundreds of different individuals each day.
Some ways that you can help our sanitation workers stay safe while they continue to provide essential services are:
Use soap and water or an alcohol-based cleaning product to wash off the handles and lids of all trash and recycling bins that are physically picked up by
sanitation workers. Ensure that bins and bags are closed and sealed properly, rinse off and wipe down bottles, cans and other recyclables that you put into bins. Keep to the rules outlined by your local sanitation department and only place proper waste and recycling materials in the proper bins. Not only do sanitation workers run a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 and other deadly diseases, they also are subject to weather-related injuries, such as falls from wet or slick surfaces, injuries resulting from hazmat materials, such as battery acid to bleach, from pesticides to hypodermic needles.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard recognized for workplace safety
KITTERY, Maine (AP) — Portsmouth Naval Shipyard touts safety among it workers, and it’s being recognized for its efforts.
The shipyard has been awarded the fiscal year 2019 Chief of Naval Operations Award for Achievement in Safety Ashore.
“Winning this award speaks to the strong safety leadership from our occupational safety and health department as well as the workforce’s efforts to embrace a superior level of safety culture within the command,” said Capt. Daniel Ettlich, the shipyard’s commander.
The challenge is to continue raising the bar, he said.
Portsmouth earned recognition for reducing the number of safety incidents and lost work days. The shipyard strengthened its safety culture by emphasizing individual ownership, responsibility and awareness.
The incident rate is 15% below the industry average and the lost day rate is 47% below the industry average, officials said.
Evidence of lead contamination was dismissed as resulting from a laboratory refurbishment
An image showing Flint water bottles
Source: © Alamy Stock Photo
The signs were there – so why didn’t anyone in authority act sooner?
It was during a typical lab exercise in October 2014 that I knew something was really different about our water. Our undergraduate students at the University of Michigan–Flint were making copper sulfate solutions for a spectrophotometry exercise. But instead of clear blue, all their solutions were cloudy, even though we were using water purified by reverse osmosis. I knew that this could be bad: the only insoluble sulfate salts are lead, mercury (I), barium and calcium. It turned out to be evidence of the true nature of Flint’s nightmare.
Six months earlier, in April 2014, the city’s water supply was switched from the Detroit water and sewerage department to the Flint river. There had been immediate public complaints about water quality, and testing revealed unusually high levels of trihalomethanes (THMs) in the supply.
10 years later: How the Deepwater Horizon oil spill changed safety, education
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that deeply affected south Louisiana and took years to clean up, affecting wildlife and the seafood industry.
If there was anything to gain from this disaster, it was realizing the importance of safety in the drilling industry, says LSU Petroleum Engineering Professional-in-Residence Wesley Williams. According to an LSU release, Williams works to teach his students the importance of safety, and he and other LSU petroleum engineering faculty have spent the past decade researching how to prevent future offshore explosions and spills.
On April 20, 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the oil well expanded into the marine riser and rose into the Deepwater Horizon rig, where it exploded, engulfing the rig and killing 11 workers. The rig sank on April 22, 2010, and oil spilled into the Gulf for 87 days at an estimated flow-rate of 1,000-5,000 barrels per day. The U.S. government estimates a total of 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf.
BP spent more than $65 billion on cleanup costs and penalties. According to Williams, the petroleum industry is not to blame; the lack of safety culture is.
“My first thought after hearing about the [Deepwater Horizon] rig explosion was, ‘Where were the human failures?’” Williams says. “It’s always multiple human failures that create these kinds of disasters. Deepwater was days of ignoring telltale signs that what you’re doing is wrong. It was years of culture that built up into causing that.”
Chipotle Will Pay A $25 Million Fine In Relation To Foodborne Illness Outbreaks From 2015 To 2018
In its own statement, Chipotle outlined some of the changes it has made since the outbreaks began, including wellness checks for each employee before they start their shift, detailed traceability of each ingredient in the supply chain, and enhanced food preparation and food handling practices designed to reduce food safety risks.
“All of these efforts have led to a robust food safety culture that Chipotle believes is one of the finest in the industry as evidenced by Chipotle leading the industry with the lowest number of violations on independent health department inspections,” the statement concluded.
How a culture of safety leads to better outcomes (and a stronger team)
When I walk into a dental office, I can get a feeling of what it’s like to work there, for better or worse. It can be bright, professional, and empowering, or it can be dark, negative, and toxic. Workplace culture is the environment created for employees and embracing a culture of safety shows not only that everyone is serious about overall well-being, but that the results are undeniable.
Understanding the reasons Many people wince when they’re told to blindly follow orders. This can be the case with a lot of governmental mandates, including when safety is concerned. However, these requirements are in place for good reasons, and understanding those reasons is a big step toward developing a culture of safety
Landstar names Ellis of Cumberland Gap, TN as 2019 Safety Officer of the Year
Ellis of Shipment Transport, Inc. based in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, was selected for his outstanding support of the Landstar safety culture. Ellis and his team conducted two Mutual Understanding of Safety Together or M.U.S.T. customer visits with agency customers in 2019. And, with more than 4 million Landstar business capacity owner (BCO) miles booked in 2019, the agency had no preventable accidents or cargo claims on any shipments it arranged during the year.
Landstar Transportation Logistics Vice President of Safety and Compliance Mike Cobb, commended Ellis on receiving the Landstar Safety Officer of the Year recognition. “Don promotes safety at his agency by emphasizing complete and accurate dispatch procedures and supporting his customers with Landstar’s safety initiatives,” said Cobb. ”The integrity of Landstar safety officers like Don are key to our safety-first culture.”
“Stay Safe” – Is it the New “Have a Nice Day”? In a COVID-19 world, I’ve found that “have a nice day” has been supplanted by “stay safe.” In just a few weeks, our focus has shifted from a desire for a pleasant experience to a safe one, which recognizes that something many people simply have taken for granted, our health and safety, is not a given in our current world.
As an environmental, health, and safety lawyer who has worked for 30 years in the oil, gas, and chemical industries, I’m pleased to see this focus on health and safety – that’s our mantra – our careers and our lives are about improving the health and safety of people.
The COVID-19 health crisis has brought to the forefront of our collective consciousness the importance of putting safety first, including by social distancing, sheltering in place, and minimizing contact for those people engaged in essential businesses, like those working in the food supply chain, the oil and gas industry, healthcare, and other critical infrastructure sectors.
It also highlights how complex even simple aspects of being safe can be. As I struggle to get preteens and teenagers to distance or follow other rules, when their natural inclination is to connect and engage with each other, to hug, to shake hands, to play games that involve contact, it calls to mind the challenges that companies face in employees’ natural instincts to get a job done quickly and efficiently… even though that may diverge from the safest way to do that task. Achieving a strong “safety culture” in complex manufacturing operations is a continuous improvement process at which our clients are constantly working. And this is with employees and contractors who want to work safely. It’s easy to slip into an old habit of how you used to accomplish a task or tempting to try to get the job done more quickly.
We see the attention, commitment, and steps taken to keep everyone safe in the COVID-19 health crisis. This type of awareness and attention should be given to “routine” hazards that we face every day. We can all take a lesson from our current experience and perhaps carry forward with our new farewell phrase, “stay safe,” to remind ourselves what we are all trying to accomplish.
Several industries are searching for qualified welders
Turner Industries’ partnership with the Construction Maintenance Education Foundation (CMEF) and local community colleges does welding training.
“The model we support is to work as a helper/laborer in an industrial setting to learn the safety culture, industrial assignment requirements, and go to school at night to develop skills,” said Thompson.
Safety should not be a ‘priority’
For others, the statement sends a mixed signal. Calling safety a “priority” conveys it is to be weighed against other considerations and implies there may be times it is superseded by a more pressing priority, such as budgets, schedules, production goals or customer demands.
What is the alternative? In their book “Safety 24/7,” Gregory M. Anderson and Robert L. Lorber explain, “In a strong safety culture, safety is elevated to be a core value in the organization. It is no longer just a priority ⦠Priorities change. Core values remain constant.”
Values are beliefs that guide actions. When employees make decisions, they measure their options against values. Every day, employees in high-risk environments decide to choose safe or unsafe behaviors. They choose whether they will wear prescribed PPE, follow standard procedures, disregard posted warning signs, etc. They often find themselves pressured to do more with less, increase productivity and exceed customer expectations. In addition, they value their jobs and ability to provide for their families. All these values collide as employees are presented with the choice to be safe. If safety is not a personal value for them, other priorities may lead them to act unsafely.
New COVID-19-themed support campaigns launched
A range of new campaigns have launched by brands, charities, supermarkets and advertisers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide support for social distancing, health measures as well as help support local businesses effected by the shutdown.
Master Builders Australia has launched a campaign to promote social distancing and hygiene on building sites around the country. The campaign will run for four weeks and is aimed at workers across the building and construction sector. The Association has also joined forces with the sector unions, the CFMEU and the AWU, to promote a safety culture during this time.
Master Builders Australia CEO, Denita Wawn, said it’s a substantial cultural change and conceded the new restrictions would slow down building work.
“Slower work is better than no work and that is why we are asking everyone in our industry to step up and be accountable for doing the right thing to keep each other and the community safe,” said Wawn.
It comes as Woolworths has taken a full-page print ad in daily newspapers with a message from the supermarket’s CEO, Brad Banducci, explaining ongoing product shortages, pleading for responsible shopping from consumers and explaining in-store safety measures during the pandemic.
Distracted Driving Fatalities Down in Washington
Fatalities from distracted driving are down in Washington, reported the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) during Distracted Driving Awareness Month, which traditionally begins in April. Recent data from WTSC show a decrease in distraction-related fatalities since 2017, when the Driving Under the Influence of Electronics Act (E-DUI) went into effect.
In 2016, the year before the law passed, 155 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver. In 2019, two years after the new law, 33 fewer distracted driving-related deaths occurred.
“Washington’s Distracted Driving law is working,” said Erika Mascorro, WTSC Program Manager, “The data shows that Washington culture around distracted driving is changing. With Washingtonians at home observing the governor’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order, now is a good opportunity to review the importance of being an attentive driver, so our families will be safer when we all return to the roads.”
WTSC conducted a 2019 statewide Traffic Safety Culture Survey and found that most Washingtonians are familiar with the distracted diving laws:
Most (74 percent) know that using a hand-held cell phone while driving is illegal Most (68 percent) know that using a cell phone at a traffic light is illegal Most (69 percent) agree that using a hand-held cell phone while driving is dangerous
[Keeping 8,800 Employees Safe] {www.daily-journal.com/business/…)
Above all, Lubrizol is keeping its 8,800 employees safe. As part of its safety culture, Lubrizol had pandemic plans and teams in place well before COVID-19. These teams were activated early in this journey and regularly assess and follow global health recommendations, as well as local guidance in all areas where the company operates.
Employees who can are working from home. In other locations, the company minimized the number of employees on site, initiating rotations where feasible, practicing social distancing and instituting additional cleaning procedures. In all locations, Lubrizol has a range of policies to support employees as they seek to balance their professional and personal lives during this unprecedented time.
For more information on Lubrizol’s response to COVID-19, visit www.Lubrizol.com/COVID-19.
Distracted Driving Fatalities Down in Washington State
In 2016, the year before the law passed, 155 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver. In 2019, two years after the new law, 33 fewer distracted driving-related deaths occurred.
“Washington’s Distracted Driving law is working,” said Erika Mascorro, WTSC Program Manager, “The data shows that Washington culture around distracted driving is changing. With Washingtonians at home observing the governor’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order, now is a good opportunity to review with the importance of being an attentive driver, so our families will be safer when we all return to the roads.”
WTSC conducted a 2019 statewide Traffic Safety Culture Survey and found that most Washingtonians are familiar with the distracted diving laws:
(New national social distancing campaign for building sites) [https://infrastructuremagazine.com.au/2020/04/02/new-national-social-distancing-campaign-for-building-sites/]
Ms Wawn said MBA has also teamed up with the CFMEU and the AWU to promote an even stronger safety culture in the industry and community during the Covid-19 crisis.
“However, we do recognise the substantial cultural change that we are asking everyone in our industry to make.
“Everyone including workers, subcontractors and management are used to completing building projects as efficiently as possible.
Ms Wawn said that although social distancing was slowing down work, it was better than the alternative of no work at all, and therefore everyone in the construction industry had a responsibility to do the right thing and keep the community safe.
Safety violations ground historic warbirds that visit Torrance annually
The FAA has grounded 10 historic aircraft that a nonprofit group regularly used for public flights, including at several Southern California airports — such as Torrance’s Zamperini Field — after finding serious safety violations in the wake of an October crash that killed seven, though the organization said in a statement it has a “commitment to safety.”
The Federal Aviation Administration release a seven-page report last week that probed the Oct. 2 crash of the historic World War II-era B-17G bomber in Connecticut during an emergency landing; one of the crash’s victims was the pilot, also a Long Beach resident. The report said that evidence showed the Collings Foundation “lacked a safety culture” when operating the bomber, nicknamed the Flying Fortress.
Hunter Chaney, director of marketing for the foundation, said on Monday, March 31, that Collings was reviewing its options; but, Chaney added, the group was not allowed to comment on the FAA accident investigation or given a heads-up before the decision to ground the aircraft was made.
The crew chief for the Flying Fortress, whose duties included handling emergencies, told investigators he was “unaware of basic information concerning operations,” including the existence of a required safety management system and had received only on-the-job training, the report said.
How building a culture of safety translates to lower insurance premiums
Crisis, catastrophe, headache and disaster—these are just a few of the terms that waste companies usually use to describe their commercial insurance renewals. According to Business Insurance Magazine, premium prices in the United States increased by 10.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 and have continued to skyrocket into the first quarter of 2020. In our practice alone, we have companies calling us days before renewal stating their premiums have gone from $300,000 to over $1,000,000. Commercial auto, property and excess umbrella are the lines we are seeing which are the most challenging to obtain and to get an affordable price for.
Insurance market premiums are cyclical, and premiums have been historically soft for the past 15 years. During this period, waste companies were able to purchase cheap insurance without much oversight. This fact deterred companies from examining their operational protocols and addressing numerous underlying issues. With claims far exceeding premiums the last few years, insurance carriers are no longer willing to write “cheap” insurance. Consequently, this has created a hard market. The axiom, “The chickens have come home to roost,” accurately describes the current situation in the commercial insurance market. Because of this reality, waste companies must be prepared to do whatever it takes to help improve their safety culture, which will in turn, significantly lower premiums.
Industrywide, we must focus on strategies that will improve the claims experience. Safety has always been mentioned as being the No. 1 most important aspect of company culture; however, actions do not support this claim. Before becoming a commercial insurance agent, I was a practicing health and safety professional. I visited multiple companies in all sectors of business, met with many respected members of management, and noticed a common denominator—people. There is not a business owner on the planet who wants a poor safety record, high workers’ compensation losses, or massive increases in insurance costs; yet, the reality is that owners have the most significant impact on whether their company is safe or not and many simply don’t take proper action.
Tension but also harmony over COVID-19 in Europe’s chemical industry
Italy, one of the nations worst affected by COVID-19, is now experiencing tension between industrial workers and chemical companies. Workers in the Lombardy region of northern Italy threatened to strike this week because of concerns that they may be exposed unnecessarily to the coronavirus while on the job.
A wide range of chemical production is considered essential in Italy and not subject to quarantine shutdowns. Filctem CGIL, Femca and Uiltec, unions representing industrial workers in Italy, had planned to call a strike to challenge the breadth of the policy.
But it was called off after a last-minute agreement on March 25 between the unions and the Italian government limiting the types of chemicals classified as essential. Under new government rules, production of dyes, pigments, inks, and explosives are now considered nonessential, and workers do not have to continue making them. New protocols have also been agreed to for worker safety in fields where production is ongoing.
What Can Be Done About Moral Distress?
There is a persistent and growing need to educate and retain nurses who are prepared to address patient care needs within complex health care systems. Approximately 17% of newly registered nurses leave the profession within the first year of practice. Moral distress contributes to this dilemma. Moral distress is defined as feeling constrained from acting upon one’s ethical knowing. It is associated with powerlessness, compassion fatigue, apathy, and burnout. My research focuses on identifying factors causing moral distress among nursing students and implementing curriculum promoting moral agency.
This work is important because students who develop moral distress in nursing school have an increased risk for becoming apathetic – new nurses reported “going along to get along” in the workplace. In a national three-site study, student nurses reported moral distress when they witnessed daily dilemmas such as compromised infection control, unsafe medication administration practices, and inadequate resources to alleviate human suffering. These situations were pervasive across workplace settings. The findings resulted in curricular strategies to promote resilience.
We taught ethical decision making and conflict communication strategies in the classroom and rehearsed in simulation labs. We also provided education for nurses working with our students in clinical settings. We emphasized resilience protective factors such as social support, goal efficacy, and communication techniques.
Ep.19 Is virtual reality safety training more effective? safetyofwork.com/episodes/…
EPISODE SUMMARY On today’s episode we discuss whether Virtual Reality is a more effective method of safety training.
EPISODE NOTES We chose to use two papers to frame our discussion. Those papers are Construction Safety Training Using Immersive Virtual Reality and Comparing Immersive Virtual Reality and PowerPoint as Methods for Delivering Safety Training.
Let us know if and how you are using Virtual Reality in your business.
Topics:
VR research is a mixed bag. How VR training works. Advantages to VR training. How VR training can be used more effectively. Outsiders publishing in safety journals.
‘Exhausting.’ ‘Very Strange.’ What It’s Like to Be an Epidemiologist Right Now.
Eleanor Murray feels both burned out and determined to help. Two weeks ago, Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University, had never given an interview; now she’s given a bunch. Her cartoon infographic emphasizing the importance of social distancing has been translated into multiple languages and dialects, including Arabic, Vietnamese, and Cameroonian Pidgin. “It’s really nice to feel like I can do something,” she says. “But there’s also this feeling of ‘Am I doing enough?’”
On Twitter she’s been fielding questions and dispensing bits of wisdom, like “Simulation models aren’t crystal balls” and “For the sake of all that is good, wash your hands.”
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to claim victims and upend daily life, lots of epidemiologists, particularly those with expertise in infectious diseases, have found themselves suddenly in demand. They’re on TV urging governments to take further action, or on social media explaining how to interpret data about the disease. And we’re turning to them for answers about a new, daunting reality.