Safety managers, ATTENTION! Check hazards, provide safety training, and ensure proper use of PPE.
Safety managers will best succeed by planning ahead for dangers such as fire, chemicals, slips and falls, and other sources of potential on-site injury.
Proper safety instruction for workers and managers is critical. When hazards are identified, all people on-site should be aware of them, and trained on how to work safely around them.
Employees and management should use the proper protective equipment (PPE) when on the job.
TRANSCRIPT:
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Dan Clark: Hi, I’m Dan Clark of The Safety Brief. This is where we talk about health and safety hazards in today’s demanding industrial and construction worksites.
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Three simple tips for safety managers. Plan ahead. Taking safety precautions will help keep the workplace safe. I have three easy-to-remember tips to make the general specific, and make your workplace safer.
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#1. Evaluate the hazards. Doing a thorough assessment is a big project. Many companies implement systems for doing a hazard check. No matter how you do it, consider fires, chemical exposure, slips and falls, ergonomics, low light levels, noise and dangerous machinery such as forklifts. Make it specific: a good day-to-day practice is to inspect the worksite before work begins. Check to make sure nothing’s out of place. Think about the small details like the temperature, or the condition of the work surfaces. Are they wet? Are they rough? Are they on an incline? Make hazard evaluation a regular part of your routine.
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#2. Train. Health and safety programs involve many types of training, but the development of these programs has to involve management. Let’s make it specific: Remember that training is often specific to a particular job or worksite. Before having workers start on a job consider if additional training or refresher training is needed. For example, if the job involves scaffolding think about whether workers have been trained how to carry equipment up there. Or, if a project involves a new type of chemical ask yourself whether employees are trained with other hazardous chemicals, and if that training is good enough or if they need more.
(1:41)
#3. Check PPE. If your workplace uses personal protective equipment, you need to have a program to show workers how to pick out and use the right gear. They also need to know how to check for functionality. Does it work, or not? And clean the PPE. Let’s make it specific: Make a schedule for checking with the workers about PPE. Are they using it? Does it still work and fit well? Would another type make their jobs easier? Making observation and discussion of PPE use a regular occurrence can help prevent accidents.
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There are the three simple tips for safety managers and that’s it for this episode. Come back for more tips and techniques on how to stay safety compliant in today’s ever-changing landscape of safety requirements. This is Dan Clark of The Safety Brief. We are sponsored by Creative Safety Supply. See the website at creativesafetysupply.com
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