Healthcare has been under siege in several ways. We claim to want and need healthcare as some sort of human right, and yet we seem to treat it for granted, and many great servants of hte people are getting hurt or killed from doing their jobs. This is not even to discuss how the Affordable [...]
For those of you who have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I make no bones about ergonomics and its importance in the workplace in developing safe and healthy habits. I just recently wrote a whole series of posts about ergonomics management systems in the workplace. So if you know [...]
Sometimes safety rules aren't just about individuals - they are for the collective public. While virtually all safety rules and regulations are designed to protect individuals, of course there is an element that looks to protect others on the worksite, or the public, or vendors/contractors - anyone who may be in vicinity of some potentially [...]
I will speak up here and say that I am quite appreciative of the work that labor unions have performed over the last 100 years. Because of their advocacy for workers, U.S. and Canada governments have passed a number of laws and regulations regarding worker safety, wages, and other benefits that have created a much [...]
Many of us read headlines in the news. Maybe we don't read the stories because of their sensationalism, but many of us do remember reading the headlines anyway. There was a time not too long ago that the Mexican casual-dining chain, Chipotle, got into the headlines quite a bit, but not for good things. For [...]
Is heart-disease risk stemming from work stress or poor lifestyle choices? Is there a way to separate the two options and find the causation? I love to look into studies that try to show causation of correlation between work (which is a natural activity for humans), stress levels and risk of health problems. I want [...]
Safety and the environment are the top factors that go into rules and regulations regarding drilling on U.S. federal lands. At least, that is what was stated by the U.S. Department of the Interior, for what it's worth. For a number of years, drilling on the U.S. Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) - the area [...]
Jared Smith of Avetta has been involved in the vetting and hiring of contractors for his company, and has provided advice for others when they are in the market for outsourcing some work to another firm. Contractors become part of the worksite as much as employees, even though they may be under different rules via [...]
Recently, Professional Safety magazine had a sit-down question-and-answer session with Jared Smith, co-founder of global technology firm Avetta (www.avetta.com), with the main topic being about hiring and vetting contractors for various jobs - including health and safety roles on worksites. The contracting economy has grown in recent years, in that it is becoming a new way [...]
If you have been following along with our current blog series about establishing a ergonomics management program in your organization, you know a little bit about Shewhart's cycle of continuous improvement. With Shewhart, you have to Plan a process for improvement, then Do the work to put the Plan in place, then you have to [...]
