Even if your business is lucky enough to avoid on-the-job injuries, an unsafe work environment will still take its toll on your workforce. We as human beings are deeply influenced by our surroundings, and when we find ourselves in an unsafe environment we become anxious and start to look for a way out — whether we recognize it consciously or not. As such, unaddressed workplace safety issues can easily lead to employee absenteeism, poor quality of work, and increased turnover (along with the more obvious risks of injury or death).

With so much on the line, organizations across all industries are recognizing the importance of a culture of safety in the workplace. Here, we discuss 8 steps for building a safety culture. But first, let’s define what a safety culture is, and what it can mean to your business.

We’re all pretty familiar with Murphy’s Law: something that can go wrong will go wrong. Right? Well, maybe not everything will go wrong in life, but there are certainly elements of risk with most things in business. Every company will have risks that could affect business somehow. Something could go wrong, and there could be problems—sometimes really big problems—from it.

OSHA recently released its 10 most frequently cited violations in 2017.

1. Fall protection: 6,072 citations—Falls from ladders and roofs still account for the majority of injuries at work, and the first step in eliminating or reducing falls is to identify all hazards and decide how to best protect employees.
2. Hazard communication: 4,176 citations—This standard governs hazard communication to employees about chemicals that are both produced or imported into the workplace. Most violations concern the failure to develop a written hazard training program or failure to provide a Safety Data Sheet for all workplace chemicals.

It's difficult to get employees to change their behaviors.  We hear this from leaders all the time:

"My people just don't get it. We do trainings and have all these safety initiatives, but our people just don't change." 

It's hard. So we're going to share our secret on how we work with clients to make dramatic turnarounds in performance.

3 Requirements to Shift Culture

Access the full training here.

Who does this impact?

Establishments with 250 or more employees and establishments with 20-249 employees that are classified in certain industries with historically high rates of occupational injuries and illnesses will be required to submit the information off of the company’s 300A forms.

Yesterday was the final day that the Texas lawsuit against the OSHA anti-retaliation and discrimination rule could have pushed off the rule to a later date. However, a judge denied the preliminary injunction that would have delayed the enforcement from taking effect as scheduled. As a result of this ruling. the final rule went into effect on December 1, 2016.

The rule was originally scheduled to take effect on August 10, but OSHA extended the enforcement deadline to November 1 due to the fact that employer groups filed a lawsuit in July seeking to block the rule.

In mid-October the judge in this case asked the employer groups and the government to agree to delay the effective date for one more month so that the parties would have time to fully brief the issues. OSHA has now delayed for a second time the enforcement date of this reporting rule to December 1. 

CHRIS TANKE
Relationship Manager

If you’re a football fan, you know that the role of the left tackle is to protect the QB from the pass rushers coming in from his blind side.  Typically the defense positions their most dangerous pass rushers on the blind side of the Quarterback to maximize the potential for an impact play (sack, fumble, or interception).  Thus, while the left tackle most likely will never pass, run, or throw the ball, he is one of the most important offensive players on the field.