The American Club has recently launched an important new loss prevention initiative entitled Good Catch. As it gains increasing momentum, five safety advisories having been issued in the two months since the campaign was launched, Good Catch is aimed directly at seafarers themselves. It combines alerts and animations on safety-related issues in a focused format. Good Catch is currently available for download in English and in both new and traditional Mandarin.
Good Catch recognizes that, although there may be differences in detail between individual safety management systems, they all have a common purpose in ensuring seafarers’ situational awareness and their personal responsibility for their own safety, that of their shipmates, the marine environment, and the many other interests involved in their service at sea. The initiative emphasizes the importance of a strong safety culture which identifies, assesses and reports unsafe conditions, unsafe acts and near misses using case study examples.
Elements of the campaign already released include: reduction of CO2 emissions; dangers of over reliance on ECDIS²; engine room egress in case of fire and questionable risk assessments of various situations. A number more are planned over the coming months.
www.coldlakesun.com/news/life…
A study from the University of Alberta found commuter workers in the oilsands have worse mental health and more work-related stress than the general population.
Mental health advocates in Northeastern Alberta say the report backs up what they have been arguing for years.
The preliminary report included 72 participants who were interviewed between late 2019 and early 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most lived across Alberta and Canada, and worked 10- to 12-hour shifts during rotations that lasted six to 21 days.
The research team, led by sociologist Sara Dorow, found distrust was common towards employers regarding mental health treatment. Any available supports will not solve this crisis if current attitudes towards mental health continue, she said in an interview.
“I didn’t expect that distrust to come up as often as it did,” she said. “Mental health prevention needs to be built into safety culture. Everyone’s proud of the safety culture in the oilsands industry, but the industry has not done nearly enough around psychosocial safety.”
Half of the workers with on-site health care said they were unlikely to use it. They did not believe confidential matters could be kept private, and feared the services would hurt reputations, wages or employment. Half of all participants felt employers did a bad job at discussing mental health supports and showed little interest in minimizing stress.
www.thesafetymag.com/ca/topics…
Basing employee rates on the cost of compensation claims has a negative impact on employee safety, according to John McKinnon, Executive Director, Injured Workers Clinic (IWC).
Raising costs was an idea that emerged in the 1980s, he added. Citing an academic report, McKinnon says that initially there was the idea that financial penalties could positively impact safety culture. The theory was that: “If we want to promote safety in the workplace, we should charge the employers if they’re having injuries and having claims costs. Claims costs should be a good indicator of health and safety practices.”
So, he says, the thought was that we influence health and safety by raising penalties for those who have high claims costs or claims that exceed a certain amount and giving rebates to people whose claims costs were lower. Nevertheless, doing this didn’t seem to actually bring about changes in health and safety practices.
“What we did see was that this triggered employer behaviour that was undesirable,” says McKinnon.
For example, employers started hiring lawyers to oppose claims by injured workers in order to keep their claims costs down. In addition, there was an increase in claims suppression and employers finding various alternatives to reporting.
Part of the IWC’s mission has been to highlight this problem.
“Basing employee rates on the cost of allowed claims creates a great deal of problems for the injured workers involved and the research shows that it doesn’t have any real significant impact on health and safety practices,” says McKinnon.
For food research, control, and production, valid and trustworthy analytical data are important. Our practical chemical food safety course for engineers therefore uses real-life studies for the ease of understanding the concept and the needed requirements for high analytical quality in relation to enabling correct evaluation of chemical food safety. Concepts of chromatography and mass spectrometry were applied and left open for inquiry-based learning and students’ search for information for their actual case study during this 3 week practical course. Three case studies, with three different analytical chemistry challenges, were addressed, namely, iodine, ethyl carbamate, and N-nitrosamine determination by ICP-MS, GC–MS, and LC–MS/MS, respectively. Each group of students successfully concluded one case study by integration of method validation and other appropriate analytical quality concepts with practical conduction of the analysis. The assignment included obtaining their own results, and evaluation of the results in the context of a food safety assessment. Successful vocabulary attainment and learning of quality assurance, analytical concepts, and data evaluation were communicated in report writing as well as oral presentations in front of the other students (in groups) and at the final examination (individually).
October 30, (THEWILL) – The management of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2), has launched the Foreign Object Debris (FOD) awareness initiative.
The initiative, according to the Ag. Head of Business, Mr. Raphael Uchegbu, is a deliberate move to ward off potential dangers that FODs constitute to aerodrome operations.
Uchegbu, who stated that FODs contribute to the damage or potential damage to aircraft, ground equipment and endanger life, also maintained that FODs can be as simple as a nut, a piece of concrete, a piece of paper, a stone, a suitcase handle, a screwdriver or even passenger.
He added that “throwaway items are inherently dangerous. In the working environment of an apron, they contribute to the damage or potential damage to aircraft, ground equipment and perhaps even endanger life. This initiative is in line with BASL’s determination to maintain top safety culture at MMA2 at all times – all for passengers’ comfort.”
Uchegbu noted that the terminal operator decided to take the bull by the horn to launch the initiative with special FOD bins. The bins, he stressed, come in yellow colour for easy identification – separate from other regular bins on the airside.
www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/news/life…
“Everyone’s proud of the safety culture in the oilsands industry, but the industry has not done nearly enough around psychosocial safety,” said U of A sociologist Sara Dorow.
A study from the University of Alberta found commuter workers in the oilsands have worse mental health and more work-related stress than the general population. Mental health advocates in the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo area say the report backs up what they have been arguing for years.
The preliminary report included 72 participants who were interviewed between late 2019 and early 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most lived across Alberta and Canada, and worked 10-to-12 hour shifts during rotations that lasted six to 21 days.
The research team, led by sociologist Sara Dorow, found distrust was common towards employers regarding mental health treatment. Any available supports will not solve this crisis if current attitudes towards mental health continue, Dorow said in an interview.
“I didn’t expect that distrust to come up as often as it did but it just kept coming up,” she said. “Mental health prevention needs to be built into safety culture. Everyone’s proud of the safety culture in the oilsands industry, but the industry has not done nearly enough around psychosocial safety.”
www.aviationpros.com/aircraft/…
Safety for experimental category aircraft in the U.S. over the past 12 months continued the trend of improvement seen over the past 15 years, as the fatal accident total fell another 5 percent and finished below the Federal Aviation Administration not-to-exceed number for the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2021.
This decrease in fatal accidents mirrors a year of substantial improvement in overall general aviation, even with increased flight hours over the past 12 months. There were 42 fatal accidents in experimental category aircraft during that period (Oct. 1, 2020-Sept. 30, 2021), five below the FAA’s not-to-exceed number set for the year. Of that total, 33 were in amateur-built aircraft.
“This is continued good news on the safety front, as fatal accident totals in the experimental category have fallen 40 percent in the past decade,” said Sean Elliott, EAA’s vice president of advocacy and safety. “Fatal accidents in homebuilt aircraft have dropped by one-third over that time as well, reflecting a safety culture that is more widely accepted and followed as an important part of the balance of freedom and responsibility that is such an essential element of flying.”
Gallup reports that only 22% of people believe their organization has a clear direction. To evaluate and improve food safety culture, organizations must value and prioritize strategic, tactical and operational planning involving team members across functions at every stage to reach their desired Blue-Sky vision.
Cultural shift Guiliani said making a case that a fleet is as safe as possible starts at the top and hits every person on the way down, adding it’s not solely about safety. Safety is tangental to prevention. “It’s all about developing, changing, the culture of prevention,” he said. “You need to start preventing. What are we doing from a driver management standpoint to either minimize or prevent accidents in the beginning?”
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Renewable sources of energy—wind, water, solar, geothermal—are widely viewed as the engines that will power the world one day, and companies specialising in renewables are already making headway toward that goal. But no matter how innovative or new, every industry has to consider safety, and the renewables sector is no exception. Fortunately, the basic tenets are somewhat universal, and are reflected in a ‘culture of care’ approach that informs every aspect of an organisation.
Culture of care through three lenses
Offshore Wind Turbines At SunsetIt’s helpful to think about how a culture of care can be expressed in three critical areas: people; processes and systems; and equipment. Caring for people means seeing and valuing them as human beings. This is evident in how leaders interact with their teams, for example, acknowledging their successes, motivating them to do better, allowing them to use their strengths and encouraging them to understand their weaknesses. At the organisational level, it might be codified in company policies that support a work-life balance or promote employee health.
A safe workspace is one of the features most workers look for. Workplaces that have standardized safety measures are less likely to have accidents, earning the company a good reputation. In industries where injuries are prone to happen, business owners do their best to develop a safety culture.
If you’re into manufacturing or production industries, you may want to know how to promote builders’ safety. For that purpose, here’s an article that could help you gain ideas.
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BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A new analysis by Press Ganey finds that safety performance declined across the entire healthcare industry in 2020. These insights indicate a reversal in harm rates that, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, had shown improvement.
“Hospitals are in survival mode because of the virus, and this has driven unprecedented levels of burnout, turnover and staffing gaps” Tweet this Press Ganey reviewed patient outcome data from its National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI®) submitted by 11,325 units from more than 1,575 U.S. hospitals. The findings showed that COVID-19’s stress on the healthcare industry contributed to a worsening of existing safety event rates such as falls, pressure ulcers and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs).
“Hospitals are in survival mode because of the virus, and this has driven unprecedented levels of burnout, turnover and staffing gaps,” said Jeff Doucette, chief nursing officer, Press Ganey. “Our healthcare workers must give their energy and almost singular focus to COVID-19, and the ripple effect has exacerbated safety lapses and drift in hospitals.”
As a result, safety culture has suffered—and safety events have increased:
Since the onset of COVID-19, patient safety events increased in all seven types of units measured in NDNQI®: adult critical care, medical, step-down, high quality, moderate acuity, surgical and med-surg. Inpatient falls increased across medical, step down, surgical and med-surg units throughout the duration of 2020. Stage 2 hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPI) increased across all seven unit types in Q4 2020. CLABSI rates increased across high quality and moderate acuity units from Q2 through Q4 2020.
https://www.uwagec.org/ruralfamilyventures/2007_08_RiskPoster_AAEA.pdf
We know a great deal about the role of risks and uncertainty in agriculture in the West and other regions. Much less is known about producers’ perceived importance and causes of various farm risks in the U.S. Patrick et al. (1985) indicated that perceptions of sources of and responses to risk varied across geographic regions and by farm type. Boggess et al. (1985) and Wilson et al. (1988) found that perceptions varied so much among individuals that a risk classification based on socioeconomic variables was not possible. Patrick and Musser (1997) concluded that, besides geographic location and farm type, institutional structures and other factors affecting the operating environ- ment of producers were also likely to influence farmers’ perceptions of sources of and responses to risk.
The paper we are discussing today is about the language used in incident reports and whether it influences the recommendations made based on these reports. We run through the findings in this paper which include the process of writing three different reports on the same incident - each including all the same facts but just written with a different perspective and focus.
EPISODE NOTES
This paper reveals some really interesting findings and it would be valuable for companies to take notice and possibly change the way they implement incident report recoMmendations.
Topics:
Introduction to the paper The general process of an investigation The Hypothesis The differences between the reports and their language The results of the three reports Differences in the recommendations on each of the reports The different ways of interpreting the results Practical Takeaways Not sharing lessons learned from incidents - let others learn it for themselves by sharing the report. Summary and answer to the question
Quotes:
“All of the information in every report is factual, all of the information is about the same real incident that happened.” Drew Rae
“These are plausibly three different reports that are written for that same incident but they’re in very different styles, they highlight different facts and they emphasize different things.” Drew Rae
“Incident reports could be doing so much more for us in terms of broader safety in the organization.” David Provan
“From the same basic facts, what you select to highlight in the report and what story you use to tell seems to be leading us toward a particular recommendation.” - Drew Rae
It is common for accident reports and the analysis of large-scale disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout, to point to communication failures. This narrow explanation implicitly assumes that accidents could be prevented if employees spoke up about safety. In contrast, the first author of this paper, whose professional experience is introduced in this Commentary to provide context, has frequently observed that there are, in fact, many cases when employees speak up but are not listened to. These patterns of communication (or lack thereof) occur at the intersection of personal, leadership, and organizational factors, which jointly affect how safety issues are recognized, communicated, and addressed. As such, communication problems are at “the tip of the iceberg” of safety problems, not at their root. In this paper, we review research on high-reliability organizations (HROs) with excellent safety records to identify their communication patterns and practices and how they contribute to the ability to enact five principles of HROs: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, deference to expertise, commitment to resilience, and sensitivity to operations. We then apply this lens to investigate the Deepwater Horizon disaster, based on court documents, expert reports, and personal interviews. Specifically, we investigate how the communication patterns between the onshore experts and the offshore crews compared to the recommendations of HRO theory and how existing discrepancies might help explain the accident. We found that many employees were aware of safety issues and communicated concerns openly, but there was little organizational response to the issues they raised. This failure to listen was largely owed to factors that were not directly related to communication, such as time pressure and lack of resources, and a culture that valued a “can do attitude” and getting things done so much that it got in the way of sensitivity to operations, expert-based guidance, and communication about problems. Moreover, the challenges of the project and its aggressive timeline created an extreme, almost toxic, commitment to resilience. Based on these findings, we discuss recommendations for improving safety in offshore oil and gas production.
Workers’ compensation rates in the saltwater fishing industry in Nova Scotia are set to fall for the seventh straight year in 2022.
Premiums have fallen 57 per cent since 2015, creating $12 million in annual savings for the industry, but while lower rates reflect an increased focus on safety and fewer accidents, fatalities are still occurring.
Last week, the captain of the Miss Janet went missing from the fishing boat off southwestern Nova Scotia. His body was recovered off the coast of Yarmouth.
“It’s felt in all parts of the province. If you have a loved one that goes out fishing for a living, that sits with you, it is very impactful. I think that sticks in people’s minds, perhaps a bit more than the successes,” said Matthew Duffy, executive director of Fish Safe Nova Scotia, a non-profit advocacy organization.
Airlines are high-reliability organizations (HRO) evolving in an ultra-competitive and regulated environment where market differentiation is challenging (e.g., a limited option of original equipment manufacturers (OEM), routes) and thin profit margins.
Often they are defined by their business models (i.e., legacy carrier (LC) or low-cost carrier (LCC)).
Because the industry is in perpetual motion and is publicly visible as most airlines care about their brand image, the slightest mismatch could result in financial, operational, and safety disasters.
For instance, the recent fiasco of the Boeing 737 MAX causing the loss of 346 souls is more than a technology failure. There were indications of real deep problems that have their roots in the organization’s leadership.
www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/…
Orlando, FL — Creating or cultivating safety culture at organizations of all sizes is a people-intense exercise that requires caring about and regularly checking in with workers.
I. David Daniels, president and CEO of ID2 Solutions, and Steven Schoolcraft, corporate vice president of safety, health and environment at Parsons Corp., amplified that view above all Oct. 11 while speaking during the Campbell Institute Forum at the 2021 NSC Safety Congress & Expo at the Orange County Convention Center.
“If you don’t care about your employees from a safety perspective, you probably don’t care much about them in terms of their production either,” Daniels said. “Because you don’t care enough to be able to create the safe environment so they can give their best, you look at them as a cog, you look at them as a machine. But if you’re concerned about them as a whole human being, you’re concerned about the role that they play in the company or the organization,” you then show your investment.
William Shatner, famous for his role as Captain James Kirk in “Star Trek,” is going for a ride on the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. However, recent allegations by a group of current and former Blue Origin employees may make him think again of going on a 10-minute suborbital hop into the final frontier.
Writing for the Lioness, Alexandra Abrams and 20 other current and former Blue Origin employees describe an alleged toxic corporate culture at Blue Origin rife with sexism, sexual harassment and favoritism. However, one item that may concern Shatner and the other three people who will be riding the New Shepard into space on Oct. 12, is whether the New Shepard is as safe as it could be.
“In the opinion of an engineer who has signed on to this essay, ‘Blue Origin has been lucky that nothing has happened so far.’ Many of this essay’s authors say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle.” The article makes a reference to the dysfunctional safety culture that existed at NASA just prior to the Challenger disaster. In response to the article, the FAA has opened an investigation. On the other hand, New Shepard has launched and landed 17 times with only one partial failure that would not have resulted in loss of life had there been a crew in the capsule.
ADVERTISEMENT The notion that Blue Origin’s corporate culture is toxic would tend to explain why the company is experiencing such a high turnover. According to a story in CNBC, the uptick in resignations has been directly attributed to the leadership of Bob Smith, the CEO handpicked by owner Jeff Bezos.
www.businesswire.com/news/home…
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–California American Water cares about the safety of its employees and customers. We want to remind customers, that thieves sometimes pose as utility workers to rob homes or con money from unsuspecting customers.
“California American Water has established an uncompromising safety culture and always puts the best interests of our employees and customers first” Tweet this “California American Water has established an uncompromising safety culture and always puts the best interests of our employees and customers first,” said California American Water President Rich Svindland. “Nothing is more important to our company than ensuring the health and safety of our employees and customers.”
All California American Water field service personnel wear uniforms, drive vehicles with the California American Water logo and wear photo identification badges containing the company’s brand name.
www.thesafetymag.com/ca/topics…
Dan Strand admits he went through an evolution of understanding that WorkSafeBC’s job is more than just building programs and that it also supports leaders in establishing a better safety culture.
This involves building workers’ confidence in safety programs. “The worker’s voice is so important,” says Strand, Director of Prevention Field Services at WorkSafeBC. “I have an understanding of how programs evolve, and how that voice needs to be brought to the table so that [workers] feel they’re part of the solution.”
Strand oversees a team of around 380 occupational safety and hygiene officers that are located all around the province inspecting workplaces.
As opposed to OHS organizations in certain other provinces, in B.C. workplace compensation and prevention are under the same umbrella. “We’re all one happy family here,” says Strand.
Outdoors, in the fire extinguisher training station, incoming graduate students hoisted red canisters of carbon dioxide to snuff out flames in a burn pan. Inside, in the pyrophoric reagents station, they witnessed a safe transfer of a highly flammable chemical from one flask to another via a Iuer-syringe and balloons. And at the gas cylinder station, they watched gas escape from a pressure vessel – a potential hazard for fires, explosions, poisoning, and cold or chemical burns.
Dangerous scenarios were staged across the six teaching labs and courtyard of the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory (SCL) on Aug. 30 for the 7th annual Safety Day, emphasizing an eye-opening reality: chemists must practice safety precautions vigilantly when conducting hazardous research.
“Safety Day is an annual event put on by the Yale Chemistry Joint Safety Team (JST) and Yale Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) to promote safety culture through resources, demos, and trainings,” said Jessica Freeze. “For the incoming graduate students, it is their first exposure to safety in the department and serves to set the standard they should expect throughout their time here.”
THE poor safety culture at a Limerick rowing club was a contributory factor in an incident that led to a 12-year-old girl suffering life-changing injuries, an investigation has found.
Amy Mulcahy became trapped under a rowing boat after it capsized on the River Shannon in February 2019.
The brave schoolgirl defied the odds to survive. She has since been described by her mother Sharon as her “miracle princess”.
A report by the Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) said contributory and causative factors for the incident extended beyond the decisions of the coaches on the day “to the higher levels of club culture” and the ethos of the sport’s governing body, Rowing Ireland.
It said the absence of a viable safety culture within Athlunkard Boat Club in Limerick and its “complacent and hands-off” attitude towards safety during activities on the river contributed to the incident. The collective inexperience of the young crew was also a risk and contributory factor.
www.neimagazine.com/features/…
A nuclear safety culture
It is vital that the entire supply chain demonstrates a sound safety culture. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations states that: “Nuclear safety is a collective responsibility. No one in the organisation is exempt from the obligation to ensure safety first.” It defines a safety culture as: “An organisation’s values and behaviours — modelled by its leaders and internalised by its members — that serve to make nuclear safety the overriding priority.” ISO 19443’s primary purposes are to increase the safety culture within the nuclear industry and harmonise supplier assessments, such as auditing processes. The standard will improve suppliers’ understanding of quality requirements needed by nuclear, standardise these requirements across the world and facilitate their acceptance by regulatory bodies. This will help to create long-term, sustainable relationships between licensees and their suppliers.
You’ve built the best team of drivers of your career. They’re safe, reliable, efficient — and happy to be on board. You’re ready to enjoy the benefits of a stable, productive fleet.
But competitors keep trying to lure them away. With supply chains stretched to capacity as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic, demand to haul freight and an accompanying need for drivers are both soaring.
Industrywide, truck driver turnover remains at a historic high. Drivers are leaving fleets for better wages, benefits or more convenient shifts. So, how are you going to keep that great team of drivers intact?
Prioritize safety: It goes without saying but — safety first. Be sure you’re checking all the boxes, and manage your fleet with your drivers’ well-being at top of mind. That means making sure that your drivers are properly trained to operate your fleet’s vehicles and maintain a steady schedule of training updates. Follow maintenance schedules to ensure your vehicles are roadworthy. Check tires, perform daily walk-arounds and the like.
Make it known their actions matter and safety is your top priority. Build a safety culture that engages with drivers on their routes. And use technology to check for dangerous road conditions and driving. By incorporating these safety features and processes, you are not only ensuring your drivers feel safe and secure, but also valued.
And drivers are more willing to stay at a company when this culture of safety is established and consistently practiced. By not investing in a safety culture, drivers will leave for other fleets that make this a priority.