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Sep 04
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Prevent Workplace Injuries with Regular Site Inspections

By Construction Insurance Bulletin

Construction%20injuryConstruction injuries seem to occur even when the most rigorous safety protocols and policies are developed. One reason is that these policies, while adequately thought out and defined, are not adequately followed or implemented. This results in a worksite environment that can be potentially hazardous to both construction workers and to anyone else who enters it. However, construction supervisors and owners can resolve these safety issues fairly easily by simply making time to conduct more frequent site inspections.

Most Common Construction Hazards

Some of the most common construction safety hazards can easily be identified during a site inspection. Some of these hazards include worn equipment that can fail, tools that are left out of place and pose a tripping hazard and unsafe actions by workers. There are many other hazards that are specific to the industry in which a construction project works, such as chemical storage and usage as well as security measures to prevent unauthorized access to eh construction area.

Conducting an Inspection

Conducting a thorough site safety inspection starts by identifying a regular time and interval to conduct the inspection. Ideally, a site inspection should occur at least once per week if time allows. Inspections are best performed during work hours to identify improper worker actions as well as other safety hazards. However, many construction supervisors may find it beneficial to alternate the times of the inspections so that they can observe different work crews or inspect equipment more thoroughly when it is not in use. Be sure to inspect any storage areas and parking areas as well as the primary construction zone and tools.

Get Employees Engaged in Inspections

Ideally, construction owners should engage their workers in performing their own safety inspections on a daily basis. This includes identifying and reporting any safety issues, deficient equipment or other hazards. Management should make it as easy as possible for workers to report these safety issues. In most cases, direct reporting to a supervisor is effective as is the use of comment boxes that allow workers to drop a note in at any time.

 

Sep 04
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Worksite Safety Starts with Building the Right Culture

By Construction Insurance Bulletin
safety_Equipment
One of the major focuses in the construction industry is safety. After all, the very nature of the job requires that workers use potentially dangerous equipment in harsh situations. However, while periodic training and providing the proper safety gear can help reduce injuries, the real answer is to create a culture of safety among the workers themselves. There are several actions that employers can take to help develop this type of culture in their own construction workforce.Create a Safety CommitteeEmployers can only remedy potential safety issues if they know about them. That’s why it’s vital that every construction group have a safety manager that oversees a safety committee. While the safety manager will drive the implementation of safety initiatives, the safety committee plays an even more important role. This committee should be comprised of workers at all levels who meet regularly. At the meetings each member can bring up safety concerns and discuss new polices or procedures and their effects on the workforce.

Identify Risks During Pre-Planning

The best time to prevent accidents is before they happen. That’s why every project planning session should include a risk assessment of potential safety issues and how to prevent them. These recommendations should then be compiled into a project safety plan just prior to the project start. The plan should identify the safety concerns and designate an individual who is responsible for implementing preventative safety measures as well as the measures that they are to implement.

Train Workers 

Training is one of the most vital aspects to keeping workers safe. However, to create a true culture of safety, employers should provide proper equipment and safety training prior to each project start, not just at new hire orientation.

Celebrate Success and Penalize Failure

Celebrating safety successes is just as important as penalizing failures. To reward successes, consider offering free lunch or ice cream when workers have a reaches a set number of accident-free days. Conversely, when safety failures occur they must be penalized. However, it’s vital that the business penalize not only the worker who violated safety protocol, but also their supervisor and other staff who also failed to follow protocol.

 

 

Sep 04
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Establish Site-wide Safety Rules

By Construction Insurance Bulletin
constructioaccidentGeneral contractors usually maintain a set of safety rules for all subcontractors and suppliers to follow while on site. As a contractor, establish basic safety standards you require on site. Don’t accept less for your employees than a safe workplace including other trades.
  • Sound. Construction sites are noisy workplaces under the best of conditions. Hearing protection is often required. So why do some sites allow radios and music boxes? The added decibels hurt, the distraction unwise, inability to hear back up warnings dangerous, and competing music choices raise the sound level and create animosity on site.
o Ban all radios and music boxes, or any other extraneous noise producer.
o Ban cell phone use, including texting, except for supervisors.
o Turn off unused generators.
  • Sight. Safety eye wear, everyone. Anyone not wearing safety eye wear grants permission for others to follow. Don’t allow this slippage to begin. Workers wear reflective vests or bright colors for easy identification. Make them be seen.
o Everyone wears safety eye wear.
o Reflective vests or bright colored uniforms for easy location.
  • Smell. Smoking on a job site covers important warning odors like gas leaks or electrical fire. Careless disposal of cigarettes is the second leading cause of construction fires.
o Ban all smoking from the site.
  • Proper Attire. Loose clothing catches on edges and rotating shafts. Work pants, no shorts, and steel-toed shoes prevent injuries to the legs and feet. Easy to spot colors. Require hard hats.

Safe work is productive work.

Other issues which should be discussed prior to mobilizing on site include work space access and shared use on site. Address adequate storage, security, and any issues with two crews occupying the same space at the same time. Safety issues should not be compromised or run by committee. Insist on protecting your employees with site-wide minimum expectations of safe practices. Most general contractors will welcome the support.

 

Sep 04
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Investigating Accidents: the process

By Business Protection Bulletin

investigateIndustrial accidents, on the job injuries, begin with cause and end with effect; they are not, in any real sense, accidents. For this reason, any injury mandates investigation, correction, and forecasting.

What are the proper steps in investigation?

  1. Reserve Judgment. Questioning employees can be tricky. Assure everyone knows the facts are important. You’re trying to build a narrative about an incident, not to fire someone.
  2. Begin with the physical location of the incident. Are guards in place, floors even, floors wet, proper equipment in place? Is the physical location in good working order?
  3. Was personal protection equipment available and in use?
  4. Gather any recordings of the incident, visual or audio.
  5. You have your setting, now interview the characters. Interview the injured party, how did this incident occur? Interview co-workers who witnessed events leading up to the moment or the incident.
  6. Find the Human Error. Always a factor, and here’s why: either the employee erred in the execution of their job, or management erred in their design of the job.
  7. Mentally walk through the incident after creating the narrative of events. Where could this incident have been prevented?

These steps should lead to a narrative which is specific about the incident from just before cause to effect, not just a description of an injury, but a detailed story describing what happened.

The investigation should state whether or not procedures were followed, and were those procedures adequate in protecting the employee. Why were they appropriate or ineffective?

Did the normal work conditions lead to injury, or did some unusual conditions play a part?

Define the unsafe elements: employee behavior, management process, workplace conditions, personal protection, time of day, time into the shift (weariness), any event or condition contributing to the injury.

Find the primary cause, secondary cause and tertiary cause of the incident.

Employee fell down and broke their wrist does not tell the story, and not much can be gleaned from that report to prevent future incidents.

Employee lost footing when stepping into a pothole in the parking lot and broke their wrist. The employee was carrying a load which blocked their view, and was too heavy. This narrative suggests:

  • fix the parking lot to create a smooth surface
  • teach employees about carrying loads
  • use hand trucks for heavy or large loads.

This report can prevent future incidents. Who, what, why, when, where and how.

Step 8: Forecast incidents by applying these lessons learned from the investigation by inspecting similar components across company operations. Fix the potential problems before the incidents occur.

 

Sep 04
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Defensive Driving Management

By Business Protection Bulletin

drivingDriving is a skill. At training camp, veteran football players start with fundamental drills: blocking, tackling, throwing, catching and running. Why? Didn’t they learn that stuff in pee-wee ball? Professional athletes still get into poor habits. And so do your professional drivers.

Skills are honed, refreshed, updated, practiced and coached. Think about these words when discussing defensive driving.

Drug free, no cell phones, well-rested and physical fitness for the job are driver requirements to ready them to sit in the vehicle. These are company obligations for safe operations: assure the driver is ready to take the wheel, schedule deliveries with enough time to drive safely and assure the drivers are well-instructed and coached in defensive driving.

Standard operating procedures and company culture set the stage for safe driving. Set procedures and expectations which reflect safety as more important than on-time delivery. The best way to accomplish this goal is to allow plenty of time for delivery. Realistic driving schedules accounting for traffic and seasonal variations take management logistics skill, but they assure safe delivery of goods and services.

The company culture expresses the value of safe driving above delivery schedule. Checking driver fitness and logistical favor-ability towards safety lets the driver know it’s up to his skill level to complete a do-able task.

On line products regarding safe driving can be useful as reminders, but direct monitoring and correction work better.

Catch the drivers doing something right. Whether it’s a thorough pre-trip inspection of the vehicle, buckling up or turning off their cell phones, praise good behavior. Make a point of positive reinforcement for safe driving habits. Drivers tend to get negative criticism more often than positive reward. Like the left tackle who hears about his missed block causing a sack, the driver only hears about his one accident in ten years.

If praised regularly for safe driving, the driver is more willing to accept criticism or corrective action for poor habits.

Employ trainers to re-evaluate drivers at least annually on a ride-along. Small habits can cause large accidents.

 

 

 

Sep 04
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Plus and Minus of Packaged Safety Software

By Business Protection Bulletin

Software can be a great tool for managing aspects of business. Nearly every specialty has a softwaremanagement software package suitable to run most businesses in that industry. Do you get the feeling business is over-managed and under-lead? Risk management programs need leadership first to create a culture of corporate safety. These software programs are tools, not decision-makers.

Some packages have excellent incident management tools: checklists, timelines, procedures. Some have safety meeting models and handouts for topics. Most have compliance tools to assure government regulations and industry standards are completed. Risk management surveys are popular.

Management is a process by which other processes and operations are measured, changed and rewarded. It’s the head of the operations.

Leadership is the big idea, the dream, the heart of the operation. Leaders decide if employees come first and production second; or if bottom line dollars trump everything else. Management then decides key performance indicators, measuring strategies, and standard operating procedures.

The strength of these software packages is in the management role. The weakness is in the inability to translate the KPI mentality to the cultural setting of the business. The software is like receiving a mathematical explanation of the Declaration of Independence.

Managers need to take the useful tools, and interpret the data into the company jargon. Enlightened company leadership treats safety as an employee benefit. Safety reports should not just list the failures in the system, the injuries and damaged property.

Communications should include the investigations of close calls which sparked some change in procedure and reduced the likelihood of future claims. Industry average loss rates should be compared with your company loss rates. Is management doing a good job?

Safety software tends to concentrate on incidents or canned meeting topics. Then, a summary report is generated. Good information. But risk management depends on implementation of a safety culture, not just incident reduction or accounting.

Use the tools, but accept leadership responsibility and move employees to enlightened safety awareness.

 

 

Sep 04
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HAZWOPER: Teach environmental awareness

By Business Protection Bulletin
HWOHAZWOPER is short for Hazardous Waste Operation and Emergency Response. Emergency responders or operations likely to encounter hazardous waste partake in this training.
In the modern day office, chemicals, cleaners, solvents, mold, mildew, pesticides,
or just poorly filtered recycled air can impact health issues.
All employees need minimal training in hazardous waste. Some examples:
  • Employee changes a nine volt battery and discards the dead cell in the trash can.
o One of the top causes of ignition is nine vault batteries thought to be dead, and the two terminals contact the same piece of metal. A circuit is completed and the battery heats up igniting other trash. Electric tape over the two terminals wrapped around the battery prevents this problem.
  • Employee cleans the bathroom with bleach. Next employee cleans the bathroom with ammonia. The combination causes toxic gas fumes.
o Schedule cleaning with specific chemicals and procedures.
  • Plastics or chlorinated compounds, such as solvents, heat up releasing phosgene gas. Phosgene gas kills unmercifully by burning lung tissue.
o Store chemicals properly and be aware of dangerous combinations which should never be stored together.
  • Instruct all employees in HAZWOPER awareness. In a chemical environment, even in an office, combinations of inks, solvents, cleaners, heat and poor storage habits can create unhealthy conditions quickly.
  • Create standard operating procedures for all cleaning and maintenance chores to avoid incorrectly disposing of waste products.
  • Choose products which are easily recycled, for example ink cartridges. Recycling avoids combining chemicals in the trash can.
  • Inspect your building for mold and mildew and remediate the smallest colony before it grows. Professionally inspect your duct work at least annually and pre-treat for biological hazardous material. Using positive pressure (pumping clean filtered air into your building) can reduce the biological intrusion through cracks and air seeps throughout your building.
  • On line or in classroom instruction is available to create awareness and provide knowledge for all employees.
  • Awareness: your best defense against environmental hazards.
Aug 05
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Cyber Security

By Other

Mind Over Matter: the Zen Approach to Innovation and Productivity  

Mindfulness practice has permeated many aspects of Western culture – from stress-reduction therapy to everyday business practices. Mindfulness is an approach to increasing awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings. Mindfulness practice began with Buddhist meditation but is being adapted to fit the more clinical and secular needs of Western treatment centers and workplaces. Here’s how mindfulness is being implemented today and how it could make your workday a little brighter.

Achieving effortless attention

The cornerstone of mindfulness is nonjudgmental observation. It entails perceiving the context of a situation without attaching any emotions to the events unfolding. Much like Zen, which emphasizes the value of meditation and intuition, mindfulness is about eliminating the clutter, finding balance, and getting to the core of what you’re presented with.

Jeremy Hunter, assistant professor at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, told The Wall Street Journal, “Mindfulness should be at the center of business schools’ teaching … because it is about improving the quality of attention, and in the modern workplace, attention is the key to productivity.” The belief is that attentiveness can be strengthened through mindfulness and meditation practice.

Being in touch with spontaneity

Journalist Warren Berger, who’s written extensively on the subject and talked with various Silicon Valley executives, writes: “Zen practitioners are taught to remain attentive and ‘mindful,’ even during life’s mundane moments—an approach that also helps design researchers and ethnographers gather observations and insights on everyday behavior and needs.” The result is small but pivotal insights that move the individual (or the company) forward.

According to Randy Komisar, a Zen practitioner who’s also a partner with the Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Zen practice “is about stripping away one’s biases, prejudices, blindness. It is about realizing the essence of things.” The belief is that through meditation and mindfulness, people open themselves up to having those a-ha! moments that spark innovation.

Honoring the practice

While Zen meditation and mindfulness can certainly boost mental health, creativity, and productivity, it’s important to remember that’s not the sole purpose of these practices. This dilemma is perfectly captured in The Economist’s Schumpeter column:

“The biggest problem with mindfulness is that it is becoming part of the self-help movement—and hence part of the disease that it is supposed to cure. Gurus talk about ‘the competitive advantage of meditation.’ Pupils come to see it as a way to get ahead in life. And the point of the whole exercise is lost.”

Mindfulness won’t help you crush your competition—but it can help you and your colleagues bring greater clarity to the workday by raising awareness of yourself and your surroundings. To get started, check out this feature piece on mindfulness and business. Begin to integrate elements of these practices into your day whenever possible. Remember, it’s not how much you do; it’s how consistently you do it.

 

Aug 05
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The Modern Office: How Place and Space Affect Productivity

By Other

cl3If you’ve worked in an office, you know there are often many obstacles to productivity. Whether it’s too many interruptions, a loud coworker, or just poor communication – there are things, specific to the work environment, that detract from your ability to work. Over the years, office spaces have evolved to suit modern working styles, but there are still inefficiencies that need to be ironed out. Here’s a look at where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how these changes will impact workplace productivity.

Yesterday

Ever work in a traditional office? One with doors and walls or a cubicle farm with rows and rows of semi-partitioned spaces? Does the thought of working in one make you anxious and trigger feelings of isolation and confinement. If so, you’re not alone.

In 1993 Dr. Francis Duffy and Jack Tanis wrote: “We are in danger of continuing to build offices that are more suitable for the first decades of this century than for the next.” According to Duffy and Tanis, traditional office spaces are “more capable of suffocating initiative than of stimulating invention,” and they worked toward building new physical spaces that gave employees “the maximum freedom to use all their talents.”

Today

Around that time open-plan offices, in which people work in large, open spaces with few physical barriers, were rising in popularity. The idea was that this would increase collaboration, creativity, and productivity. Open layouts are meant to encourage a sense of group togetherness and make employees feel like part of a more relaxed, creative enterprise.

Physical barriers have been closely linked to psychological privacy, and a sense of privacy boosts job performance.


As Maria Konnikova wrote in The New Yorker on open offices, “Psychologically, the repercussions of open offices are relatively straightforward. Physical barriers have been closely linked to psychological privacy, and a sense of privacy boosts job performance.” So while the open layout is beneficial for working together, it diminishes the quality of individual work.Today, it’s estimated that 70 percent of all offices are open-plan. In some ways, it’s improved collaboration and communication in the workplace. At the same time, it’s done little to enhance creativity and, in many instances, has negatively impacted productivity. In one study, people reported not having enough privacy and being distracted by too much noise.

Tomorrow

Most offices won’t revert back to traditional office spaces. Open-office layouts allow more people to work per square inch, reducing the amount of total office space needed. So how can you blend traditional and open-office floor plans to get a modern workspace appropriate for how people work today?

The key is to create an office space without barriers that can also be private. Given the increase in mobile devices used in the office, it’s important to have a flexible work environment where people can move around and work in different places. One way is having private breakout rooms where a person or a small group of people can work together. Other solutions include alcove sofas and workbays to break up an open space and provide workers with more private options.

The challenge for tomorrow will be designing a space that creates a feeling of psychological privacy but is also flexible enough that people can easily move around and collaborate. With technology enabling a more grab and go work style, we need workspaces to reflect that increased flexibility. How has the way you work changed and how has your workplace evolved (or not evolved) in response?

Thomas Fenner Woods Agency 614-481-4300 Website

A cure for technological distractions in five minutes a day with mindfulness and meditation

While the distractions of social media and always-on devices pile up, it’s becoming increasingly important for people to unplug and refocus. Workplaces can be circuses of nonstop meetings, endless barrages of email and social networking, and people walking around with their faces stuck in devices.

RELATED: Mindfulness in the workplace: how two minutes a day can reduce stress and improve focus

And the solution to technology overload may be mindfulness.

Many organizations are finding that mindfulness works: it decreases stress, increases productivity, and helps people form better personal connections. Companies such as Google, Procter & Gamble, Aetna, General Mills, and Target all have meditation rooms. The Seattle Seahawks have a meditation coach, as do other sports teams and entertainment figures, including 50 Cent and Katy Perry. Even the US military is teaching mindfulness techniques to members of the armed services.

If you don’t have a mindfulness coach or advocate at your company, you can still practice in the comfort of your office, home, or cubicle. It’s easy, and you can see benefits by spending only five minutes a day. Here’s how.

Mindfulness is like a workout for your brain.

Wait. It’s easy?

It is! All it takes is 5 to 10 minutes a day. Find a place in your home (or office) where you can sit comfortably and undisturbed. Leave your phone in another room on silent mode. You don’t need to cross your legs or put your hands in funny shapes. You also don’t need to say, “Ommmm.” All you have to do is sit there and concentrate on your breathing. When your mind wanders, go back to thinking about your breathing. Repeat until 5 or 10 minutes pass. That’s it.

Why can’t I have my phone?

Silly person, your phone is a distraction. It may ring or ding or vibrate, which will take you out of the moment and make you want to answer it, look at it, or silence it. You’re trying to eliminate distractions like that.

Over the years, we’ve become so addicted to taking in information, it’s become our primary mode of operation. It started with television, which people still sit in front of and do nothing except absorb whatever’s being shown on the screen. Now in recent years we’ve done the same with computers and phones. We move from one screen to another and one piece of information to another with no time to think, synthesize, or be creative.

Eventually you may want to create a space in your home with a “no technology” rule, like your bedroom, so you don’t have the temptation of picking up your phone in the middle of the night or looking at it first thing in the morning. That way you can be more aware of what you’re doing without having your attention stolen by the latest email message.

You mentioned some benefits?

Yes, many benefits. Focusing on the benefits is probably the best way to get you to set aside some mindfulness time. Here are a few backed up by data and research:

• Increased ability to focus.
• Physically shrinks the stress centers of your brain.
• Increased ability to know what is happening in your head without acting on it.
• Better self-awareness.
• Increased sense of compassion.


Another benefit that can’t be undervalued is creativity. To be creative, you need space and time. You need to be able to be alone with your thoughts. That’s impossible when you’re surrounded by distractions that prevent you from concentrating on anything for a long period of time. Filmmaker David Lynch famously explored this idea in his book Catching the Big Fish.

In a lot of ways, mindfulness is like a workout for your brain. We already know it’s important to work out our bodies to stay healthy, so it makes sense to dedicate some time to working out our minds. You may find you’re happier, more creative, and better able to concentrate on whatever you’re doing.

Aug 05
Love0

Top 5 Productivity KILLERS in the Workplace

By Other

 

Driving us to distraction: the top 5 time-sucks in the office

cl2
The genius that happens every day in the offices of the world requires a certain amount of focus. Unfortunately, most offices are awash with both physical and mental distractions that pull our attention away from the task at hand. To help you identify common pitfalls, we’ve zeroed in on the top five productivity killers in the modern age. Better still, we gathered expert advice on ways to block out the noise and get to work.

1. Social media
Rieva Lesonsky, CEO of GrowBiz Media & com, admits her primary distraction is self-inflicted. “Social media can take me off task, especially Twitter. (I’m addicted.)”

RELATED: The science of cuteness: how looking at baby animals increases productivity

It happens to the best of us. You’re at a lull in your work, and you get that nagging sensation that something amazing might be happening on Facebook. Why not take a quick peek, just to make sure the world’s not passing you by? These brief breaks may seem harmless enough, but making compulsive social media checks during the day can add up to hours a week of lost time.

Instead of checking Facebook or Twitter throughout the day, try scheduling your social media time after lunch and limit it to 15 minutes. Having a special time slot for checking out the latest hijinks of Grumpy Cat will leave the rest of your day free for more productive endeavors. And if you really can’t help trying to scratch that itch, consider blocking your most visited social websites with your browser’s security settings.

2. A crazy commute
If you live or work in a large city, the morning commute can be an exercise in extreme frustration. What should be a 15-minute drive can turn into an hour or more of unproductive stress during rush hour.

Fortunately, thanks to cloud computing, working remotely is easier than ever. With web-based software and collaboration tools, office workers can get everything done even when they’re miles away from home base. More and more, corporate leaders are warming up to the idea of telecommuting as remote employees report higher productivity and morale. Even if you can’t work remotely all the time, you may be able to slightly shift your work schedule so you’re not traveling at rush hour, or just handle the first hour of your workday from home before you hop in the car.

3. Loud-mouthed colleagues
Who can’t relate to this scenario: you’re just settling in for some hard-core focus time to bang out a monthly report when the guy in the next cubicle starts in on a high-volume recap of last night’s episode of Game of Thrones—and you haven’t seen it yet (spoiler alert!). Working in an office can be great for collaboration and easy communication, but not so great when you’re doing focused solo work. Diplomatic requests for quiet might buy you a few minutes of peace, but let’s be realistic: some people do not possess an inside voice. Treat yourself to a pair of noise-canceling headphones and crank your favorite background tunes or soothing sounds from a white-noise website like Noisli.

4. The unfocused workday
You may have a truckload of work, but without a clear plan of attack, you may leave the office that night wondering what you got done and why you spent time on the wrong tasks. Ramon Ray of Smart Hustle Magazine zeroes in on the root of the problem. “Lack of clear understanding and planning. When I’m clear and highly organized, things flow!”

Jeff Marcoux, CMO lead for Worldwide Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft, agrees. “Randomization is the killer of productivity.” To get his house in order, he spends the first 10 minutes of his day making an explicit to-do list, following guidelines set out in this Harvard Business Review article. If you have trouble organizing your tasks, check out a mobile productivity tool like ToDoist or LeanKit.

5. Email
It’s impossible to avoid in the modern workplace, but email is as much a hindrance as it is a help. Andy Karuza, owner of BrandBuddee, notes, “being ‘too connected’ can be a major productivity killer. This is because task switching wastes lots of time from having to reset your train of thought and pick up where you left off on the previous task.”

Answer emails and social media messages together at the top of the hour. Knock them all out at once and then wrap yourself up again in that Excel spreadsheet you were working on.


Your email inbox forces you to switch focus from your task at hand, wasting precious minutes of your targeted energy. Karuza suggests taking a structured approach. “Answer emails and social media messages together at the top of the hour. Knock them all out at once and then wrap yourself up again in that Excel spreadsheet you were working on.”

You may also be doing work that is better done by a machine. Try to automate some basic email tasks to help you prioritize your inbox so those sprints of replying to email are as efficient as possible.

Whether you’re working from home or at the office, there’s always something there to distract you. Identifying your own biggest distractions is the first step to eliminating them. How do you conquer your workday productivity killers?

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