Safety

Are Workplace Homicides Growing?

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Violence, or even homicides, in the workplace are something we all hear about from time to time, but never really think it could happen to us. The violence is sometimes directed at an individual (such as an overbearing boss or abusive co-worker) but sometimes it seems random. As much as we’d all like to think otherwise, workplace violence can happen in any area. Statistics from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) state that homicide is the fourth …

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Importance of Proper Respiratory Protection in the Workplace

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Everyone knows that when working directly with toxic chemicals or other hazardous materials, it is essential to wear proper respiratory protection. What most people don’t realize, however, is that in many different environments, this same type of protection is still a good idea. In many different work environments, there is often dust, vapors, mist, fumes, gas, and other unhealthy contaminants in the air around us. While these types of contaminants may not cause a serious …

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How to Hire a Safety Consultant

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Hiring a safety consultant is an important task for any growing organization. Whether the position is being opened up because of specific safety concerns, or strictly as a preventative measure, it is important to take the time to make sure you’re hiring the right person for the job. While there are many things that need to be looked at in order to get the right person, there are some qualifications that any good safety consultant …

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Why Use a Checklist for Your Inspections?

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Performing inspections is one of the most important jobs of a safety manager. Even in cases when the actual inspections aren’t directly performed by the safety manager, he or she will still be responsible for reviewing the results and taking action where necessary. Unfortunately, for many facilities, an inspection ends up being little more than a walk through an area by someone who really doesn’t know exactly what they should be looking for. Watching for generic …

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The Benefits of Equipment Inspections

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Individuals or departments which are responsible for the overall maintenance of a facility are often stuck in an undesirable position. They are typically extremely busy responding to requests from other departments to fix machines or perform other tasks. In addition, they are often constrained by budgets which don’t have too much wiggle room. What this often leads to is jobs like equipment inspections and preventative maintenance being neglected. When these types of things aren’t given …

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Using Accountability to Drive Safety

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When individuals are injured, or accidents occur in a facility, there is almost always a lot of blame going around. If asked, the individual involved with the accident will typically blame the company for not keeping the facility safe enough. If the safety manager of the facility is asked, they may comment on what the employee did improperly that resulted in the accident. Even in minor problems with safety, there is almost always more people …

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Healthcare and Workplace Injuries

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When most people think of hospitals and doctors’ offices, they think of a place to go to get better from an illness or injury. When employees go there, however, they might think of it as a dangerous place where they might actually sustain a serious injury. A recent study found that healthcare workers are more likely to suffer musculoskeletal injuries than those working in any other field. Specifically the report found that nurses, nurses’ aides, …

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Are We the Biggest Threat to Workplace Safety?

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Workplace safety has never gotten more attention, or resources, than it does today, but in many industries there are still a high number of injuries and even fatalities each year. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that workplaces are changing quite quickly, which opens up the risk of new types of hazards in the area. Another threat to workplace safety, however, may be those who are tasked with improving safety. This might …

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4 Tips to Improve Workforce Efficiency within Your Warehouse

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Improving workforce efficiency is an important task of any warehouse manager. According to a recent survey most managers recognize the fact that their facility is not running at optimal efficiency, but they feel there is little they can do about it. While most warehouse managers may know that their facility is not running as it should, it is unlikely that they really understand just how much wasted time and effort they have in their facility. …

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Human Errors Cause Equipment Failures

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No matter what industry one is working in, all facilities are run by a combination of people and machines. While this is the only way to get work done, it is also the source of endless problems. One of the biggest problems, and the most expensive, in a facility is when there are equipment failures which cause work to stop. A study was done recently which found that the majority of these types of failures …

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