Yes, safety is serious business, but if we're not allowed to laugh once in a while, then why in the world are we human? We might as well be androids or robots. No matter how serious our work, we all have to have a sense of humor, even if the circumstance is generally serious. Being [...]
We safety professionals will often get inundated with lots of useful and practical information about safety and safety-related issues, topics, regulations and legislation. And often, we get this information passively, through trade magazines or journals or from other means that don't involve direct conversation or engagement. And when it is passive, there is often no [...]
We have all been there. We have all had that job (or jobs) where we have to wear a hideous uniform for work. Yes, I said hideous. Even if it's actually kinda fashionable (though rare), these are hideous uniforms because you can only wear them for work, and often they are not always that comfortable [...]
Well OK, maybe I am being a little dramatic with the headline. But the point is that protective gear is something that cannot be taken lightly and is not a one-size- or one-type-fits-all scenario. Not only do you need the right type or protective gear for the hazardous situation you're in, but you also have [...]
Road, meet rubber. Now that you have given some real thought to your machinery and equipment at your work site and the risks to workers from that equipment not being properly shut down, you may now be thinking hard about actually putting in a lockout program in your workplace. It might seem expensive in time [...]
One of the big challenges in safety is the inanimate machine, not the unpredictable animating physical asset called a human being. While a human's specific actions may be unpredictable, as safety officers we can safely predict that their actions will be unpredictable. And we can predict generally how a machine is going to act when [...]
If you are looking for a reason to have a lockout program on your job site, you likely will find no better advocate for such a thing than Kina Repp. If you even want to know what a lockout program is and how to implement one, Kina Repp is also a good source. [Image [...]
Relative to car travel, traveling by airplane is a much safer mode of carrying passengers from one place to another (and is often faster, once you take away the long lines in security and the long wait at the gate before boarding). There is almost nowhere in the world that can't be accessed by plane [...]
There may be some out there who still think workplace health nd safety is an expense instead of an investment, and when I or other safety officers try to sell the investment point, there are probably some who think we are just carping along to maintain our jobs by trying to paint the importance of [...]
Many of you loyal readers know that recently I spent a couple of blog posts talking about musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and their impact on time-loss injuries and workplace safety, especially in the construction trades. However, MSDs are certainly not confined only to construction worksites. These kinds of strains, sprains, loss of mobility and pain or soreness [...]
