SAFETY BLOG

Office Work Station Ergonomics

Office workers sustain over 70,000 injuries in the office setting annually.  Sprains, strains, and repetitive motion injuries account for many of these.

• Falls and slips 35%
• Strains and over exertions 22%
• Struck by or against objects 18%
• Caught in or between objects 10%

Ergonomics:  is the study of man's relationship with his or her workplace.  The employer must fit the task to the person.  OSHA's standards on office ergonomics are found within 29 CFR 1903.1

The ergonomically correct work station:

• Office chair should provide support for the lower back.
• The seat should be fully adjustable in height.
• Monitor terminal should be 18-24 inches away from worker.
• The employee's eyes should be at the same height as the top of the monitor screen.
• Anti-glare technology should be applied to decrease eye strain
• When seated, the employee should sit in an upright position with shoulders back.  Back fully supported.
• Foot rests should be provided for shorter people to add support to the hips and back.
• Upper legs and lower legs should form a 90 degree angle for optimum support.
• The employee's elbows should be level with the keyboard.
• Wrists straight
• This will form a straight line from the elbow to the fingertips
• Add wrist cushions to keyboard bases and mouse pads to decrease carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Adequate lighting to decrease eye strain, but not too much to contribute to monitor glare.
• Anti-slip mats under chairs decreases slips and falls.
• Work space dividers to reduce noise.
• Headsets decrease neck strains for employees that frequently use telephones.

Be safe out there!

Employee Health & Wellness

Research is beginning to shed more light on successful companies.  We are starting to find out that the general health and wellness of a company's employees directly relates to the efficiency and success of that company.  Healthy employees are efficient employees.  Tests have shown that employers who promote health and wellness among their employees have a more dedicated, satisfied, and successful workforce than those employers that do not.

Areas of health and wellness to promote in your company:

• Workplace Safety-
• The first and top priority in any workplace should be the health and safety of its employees.  Just like at home, an employee wants to feel nurtured and safe in their work environment.
• The first step is having a management staff that is committed to protecting their employees from all hazards and dangers.  They must practice what they preach.  If an employee knows that their management cares about them, then a level of trust will take root and the employee will dedicate more energy and talent to the benefit of the entire company.
• Next, comprehensive safety protocols must be developed to protect employees from known or potential hazards.
• Finally, training and education is the best way to increase knowledge of safe practices and to developing a safety-minded company.
• Aesthetics and ergonomics-
• The look and feel of the office or workplace can have a major effect on the emotional wellbeing of its employees.
• Limit restrictive barriers such as cubicles and solid wall offices in the workplace.  Maximize space in a way to promote socializing and idea creation.
• Maximize natural light and fresh air.  Encourage outdoor breaks, lunches, brainstorming sessions, etc.
• A fresh coat of paint with balanced color schemes can go a long way to substitute for the industrial feel of many workplaces.
• Utilize artwork that reflects the dedication and ideals of the company's employees.
• Many employees who are involved in repetitive movements can be plagued by soreness and long term injuries.
• Invest in a comprehensive ergonomics study within your workplace.
• Upgrade to equipment, furniture, and procedures that will minimize repetitive movement injuries.
• Mental and emotional health-
• Provide access to confidential mental health professionals that can assist employees with common life difficulties such as depression, divorce, death in the family, etc.
• Develop a comprehensive substance abuse program within the workplace.  This program must deter substance abuse among employees, educate employees on the dangers of substance abuse, and provide treatment and recovery options for employees that are seeking help.
• Physical health and wellness-
• Educate employees on the impacts of eating healthy, exercising and monitoring health.
• Set health goals as a company.
• For example, an office of 15 people will strive to lose 100 pounds in one month.
• Replace unhealthy foods and beverages in vending machines with fresh and healthy foods.
• Develop a healthy workplace program that will cover all areas of health and wellness for the work force.
• Provide interoffice wellness checks for employees on a regular basis.
• Blood pressure checks
• Influenza vaccinations
• Prostrate cancer screenings
• Breast cancer screenings
• Encourage yearly physicals for employees in high-risk operations.

 Take care of yourselves and your employees, they are the best asset you will ever have.

 Be safe out there!

School Zone Safety

School is back in session and the time has come to review issues pertinent to driving safely in school zones.  Our children are defenseless from reckless drivers.  Employers should take the time to review driver safety tips as it pertains to school zones.

Did you know?

According to experts, an alert and skilled driver traveling at 20 MPH who spots a child in the road 50 feet ahead will be able to come to a full stop within that distance.

The same driver traveling 30 MPH will not even begin to slow down before hitting the child.

20 MPH in school zones!

Most states mandate a 20 MPH speed limit in school zones although there are states that mandate less speeds.  Keep in mind that 20 MPH is the maximum speed in which a driver may attain in a school zone.  It is absolutely acceptable to slow down 5 to 10 MPH below the maximum limit.

Everyone must remember that children are unpredictable and can appear in a street or crosswalk at any time.  Do not rely on the children to keep themselves safe, you must ensure their safety by slowing down and being alert.

Tips for driving safely in school zones:

SLOW DOWN! - The slower the vehicle is traveling, the more reaction time the driver has.

DITCH THE CELL PHONE! - Talking or texting while driving greatly diminishes the drivers ability to navigate the vehicle safely.  Never operate a cell phone while driving through a school zone.

BEWARE OF BUSES! - Whenever you see a school bus, it is a safe bet to assume that there are children nearby.  Watch for children darting into the street from the hidden sides of school buses.

BE PATIENT!- Never try get around a bus before it stops because there may be children crossing the street to board the bus.  It is against the law to pass vehicles in school zones.  On two-lane streets, oncoming traffic must stop for stopped school buses.

DON'T RELY ON LIGHTS AND SIGNS! - Always assume that children are near streets in school zones even when school zone caution lights are not operating.  Be mindful of all street signs indicating crosswalks or school zone designations.

BE PREPARED TO STOP! - Keep your foot on the brake and be ready to stop at a moments notice.  Children are small and difficult to see, they can come out of anywhere.

Always obey all public safety and traffic laws when driving in school zones.

Be safe out there!

Fire hazards are not just limited to the workplace.  Fires in the home can be both devastating and tragic.  Americans must not only conduct fire safety trainings in the workplace, but at home with their children as well.

Workplace Fire Safety

Emergency planning is one of the most basic safety trainings conducted in the workplace.  Employers should consider establishing written emergency protocols and practicing emergency scenario drills twice a year.  Workplace emergency protocols and trainings should include the following:

• Define evacuation procedures
• Exits should be located on site maps throughout workplace
• All exit signs to be illuminated for easy recognition
• Locations, maintenance, and use of fire extinguishers should be trained on annually
• When to fight fire vs. when to flee
• Employee responsibilities during evacuation
• Processes or machines that need to be turned off
• Other employees with disabilities that may need assistance
• Emergency contact numbers
• Outdoor employee meeting and check-in location
• Practice emergency evacuation drills bi-annually
• Shelter-in-place procedures
• Identify the most structurally sound area of the complex
• Post signs identifying emergency shelter
• Store an emergency band radio with extra batteries
• Practice shelter-in-place drills bi-annually
• Identification of special hazards
• Invite local emergency service personnel to tour facility annually
• Review emergency protocols, procedures, and special hazards

 The best way to protect our families from fire hazards at home is by developing a safety plan and practicing bi-annually.

Fire Safety At Home

• Educate family members and practice fire safety tips
• Stop, drop and roll
• Feeling and closing doors during fire emergencies
• Staying low to ground in smoke filled environments
• Teach children to go to windows and await help if they cannot self extricate
• Children should not hide or run from firefighters
• Never play with matches, lighters, outlets, or electrical appliances
• Change batteries in smoke detectors every time the clocks are changed (bi-annually)
• Every floor should have a carbon monoxide detector
• At minimum, keep a dry-chemical fire extinguisher in the kitchen
• Optimally, every floor should have an extinguisher
• Laundry room as well
• Draw a floor plan of your house with your children and map out two escape routes from each floor of house
• Outdoor meeting location should be identified
• Outdoor meeting location should be at a neighbors front lawn or porch so neighbors can watch over children until you or help arrives
• Discuss escape plan and bedroom layout of your house with neighbors
• Practice escape with children twice a year
• Fire and barbecue pits should be a minimum of twenty five feet away from structures
• Never store flammable liquids or oily rags in house
• Create preparations for natural disasters and other emergencies
• Store plenty of drinking water
• Emergency-band radio with extra batteries
• Non-perishable foods
• Extra blankets and first aid supplies
• Visit the Department of Homeland Security for a detailed emergency preparation checklist

Walking and Working Surfaces

The following information is a general overview of major points and standards developed from OSHA 29 CFR Part 1910, Subpart D.  Walking and Working Surfaces for General Industry.

Key Terms:

• Floor Hole: opening less than 12 inches but more than 1 inch
• Floor Opening: an opening greater than 12 inches where a person may fall
• Toeboard: barrier to prevent the falling of materials
• Standard Railing: barrier to prevent persons from falling
• Wall Hole: an opening less than 30 inches but more than 1 inch high of unrestricted width, in any wall or partition
• Wall Opening: an opening greater than 30 inches high and 18 inches wide

General Requirements:

• All places of employment, passageways, storerooms, and service rooms shall be kept clean and orderly and in a sanitary condition
• Aisles and passageways shall be kept clear and in good repairs, with no obstruction across or in aisles that could create a hazard
• Covers and/or guardrails provided to protect personnel from the hazards of open pits, tanks, vats, ditches, etc.
• Load rating limits shall be posted on all cover plates

 Floor Openings, Wall Openings, and Holes:

• Railings to be provided on all exposed sides of a stairway except entrance
• Guardrails to be in place or attendant posted at all temporary floor openings
• Floor holes to have standard railing with toeboard or hole cover of standard strength and construction
• Every hatchway or chute opening to be guarded
• Platforms 4 feet or more above ground shall be guarded by standard railing on all open sides except entrance to ramp, stairway, or fixed ladder

 Railing, Toeboard, and Cover Specifications:

• Top rails shall have a vertical height of 42 inches nominal from upper surface of top rail to floor
• Protection between top rail and floor, platform, runway, ramp, or stair treads, equivalent at least to that afforded by a standard intermediate rail
• Height of handrails shall be not more than 34 inches nor less than 30 inches from upper surface of handrail to surface of tread
• Toeboard should be nominal 4 inches in vertical height and have no more than 1/4 inch clearance above floor level
• Roadway manhole covers to handle at least 20,000 pounds
• Skylight screens must be able to carry at least 200 pounds
• 200 pounds for wall opening covers

Stairways:

• Every flight of stairs with 4 or more risers shall have standard railings or hand rails
• Stairways less than 44 inches wide having both sides enclosed, must have at least one handrail that is affixed, preferably of right side descending
• Less than 44 inches wide with open side, one affixed handrail on open side
• Less than 44 inches wide with two open sides, two handrails to be provided on each side
• Fixed industrial stairs are to carry 5 times anticipated load
• Minimum moving concentrated load of 1000 pounds
• Minimum width of 22 inches
• Angle to horizontal between 30 and 50 degrees
• Vertical clearance from tread to overhead a minimum of 7 feet

 Ladders:

• Must extend at least 3 feet above point of support
• Never to be placed near electrical hazards
• Foot of ladder placed 1/4 height on lateral
• Never splice ladders to elongate
• Never use as platforms
• Secure footing, or lashed or held in position

Hazard assessment cannot be stressed enough.  Every time we set foot into the workplace we must evaluate our surroundings and work operations for threats to our safety.

On Thursday April 23, two painters in Akron, Ohio were dropped off at a vacant house under renovation at 10 p.m.  The painting job was fairly straight forward, they were to paint all of the floors on the inside of the house.  The house had no electric service, and since they were going to work throughout the night, they decided to use a generator to provide electric to their portable lights.  The two men placed a gas generator in the fruit-cellar of the basement of the house.  The room that housed the generator had a small open window which the two men obviously thought would be enough ventilation for the exhaust fumes.  There were no other open windows in the entire house.  On Friday morning, the contractor arrived at the residence to check on the painters' progress and found the two men lying on the floor inside of the house.  The man immediately called 911.  When police, fire, and EMS arrived, one of the painters was declared dead on the scene and the other was barely breathing.  Carbon dioxide levels are considered hazardous at 35ppm (parts per million).  The initial levels detected by responders was over 700ppm.

This is just another tragic example of a deadly workplace accident that most certainly could have been avoided with a little fore-thought and safety planning.  Again, we must make safety in the workplace our first priority.  The following is a link to the reported story.

Fumes Suspected in Death

Starting a Personal Protective Equipment program for general industry?  Follow the following checklist to ensure your program is OSHA compliant and your related trainings are efficient.

PPE Program and Training Checklist:

1. Identify (in writing) steps taken to assess potential hazards in workplace.
2. Identify appropriate PPE selection criteria.
3. Identify how to train employees on use of PPE:
1. What PPE is necessary.
2. When PPE is necessary.
3. How to Properly inspect PPE.
4. Donning and adjusting PPE.
5. Doffing PPE.
6. Limitations of PPE.
7. How to care for and store PPE.
4. Identify how to assess employee understanding.
5. Identify how to enforce use of PPE.
6. Identify how to provide medical exams.
7. Identify how and when to evaluate PPE program.

Contractors need to understand their role in ensuring construction safety.  Construction sites are dynamic in nature, and generally are plagued with multiple serious health and safety hazards.  All employees are entitled to a sanitary and non-hazardous work environment.  OSHA's 1926 subpart C defines the basic responsibilities of the construction contractor.  The following is a list of basic safety standards that contractors must meet to increase safety on the job site.

• Initiate and maintain programs as necessary to maintain safe work environment
• Provide for frequent and regular inspections of job sites, materials, and equipment to be made by a designated competent person
• Machinery, tools, materials, or equipment that is out of compliance must be identified by tagging as unsafe, locking the controls to render them inoperable, or physically taking them out of service
• Shall permit only those employees qualified by training or experience to operate equipment and machinery
• Instruct each employee on how to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions
• Inform employees of the regulations applicable to his/her work environment
• The goal is to eliminate or control all known hazards through employee instruction
• Instruct employees on hazardous or harmful chemicals and how to protect themselves
• Make employees aware of harmful plants and animals
• Make first aid accessible
• Require personnel to wear appropriate PPE
• Instruct on confined or enclosed spaces, the hazards, necessary precautions, and comply with regulations pertinent to that condition
• Instruct employees on safe handling and use of flammable liquids, gases, and toxins

Contact a reliable safety consultant to get more details on how to initiate these basic safety programs.

Worthington Industries presents an outside the box solution to safety programs.  An article in EHS Today by Terry Leberfinger reported that Worthington Industries has been using a radical program for increasing safety and lowering accidents and safety related costs in their workplace.  A leading diversified metals processing company with 8,000 employees and 64 facilities worldwide have been relying on their employees to define safety in the workplace.

Traditional safety programs start from the top and work their way down to baseline employees.  Company administrators decide where the hazards exist, create policies to manage those hazards, and implement trainings and media to enforce the policies.  Since 2001, Worthington has been working from the ground up.  The train-of-thought here is that safety programs need to be defined by those that are facing hazards and responsible for abating them.  They call it the Safe Works program.

Highlights of Safe Works:

• provides standardization and sharing of company-wide best practices
• program is rooted in employee empowerment and communication
• voluntary safety councils are made up of employees at all levels
• program focuses on developing safe behaviors and the preventing of injuries through positive reinforcement
• PPE is tried, tested, and selected by the employees themselves
• zero incidents are rewarded in a comprehensive reward program

In the seven years that Worthington has been supporting the Safe Works program they have had:

•  one-third reduction in serious injuries
• 27 percent reduction in total injuries (OSHA recordable)
• 22 percent decrease in number of worker's comp claims
• reduced cut-related injuries by 41 percent

This form of proactive, outside the box thinking is starting safety down a new path.  Congratulations to Worthington Industries to a job well done.

Read the whole article at EHS Today.  http://ehstoday.com/safety/best-practices/workplace-safety-trust-employees-0309/ 

In an article posted by SFGate.com, Nevada's Assembly of Commerce and Labor Committee passed mandatory safety training for all construction workers in the state.  All base level employees will be required to have 10 hour certifications and all supervisor or management level employees will be required to have 30 hour certifications.  This focus on safety has resulted from 12 worker fatalities on the Las Vegas Strip in the past 18 months.  The bill also gives more control to regulating agencies.  This is the beginning of a nationwide focus on safety regulation.

The New York Times posted an article a few days ago about a New York construction worker who fell 10 stories to his death while renovating a Park Avenue Hotel.  As the country continues to rack up fatalities in the workplace, we will continue to see an increase in government control on job sites.  OSHA already sets standards for construction, general industry, and maritime operations.  Violations of these standards can result in heavy fines.  So how does the contractor prepare his/her business for an inevitable increase in safety training?

Start training your employees now!  Once states begin to mandate these safety trainings, the demand for safety trainers will increase.  Therefore, contractors will have to pay more for these high demand trainings.  10 and 30 hour trainings are reasonably priced during this economic depression and safety trainers are lowering their prices to get work.  Once these trainings are mandated for all construction employees, there will be drastic price increases as training schedules fill up.

Employee safety is of the utmost importance.  The cost of training employees is a drop in the bucket compared to increase in governmental control over contractors.  More control, means more stringent standards.  More stringent standards means more citations and higher fines.  Unfortunately for the safety-minded contractor, a handful of irresponsible companies have set this train in motion.  By starting your 10 and 30 hour trainings now, you will be saving later.