Changes in safety and health approaches are needed both in and outside of government. Many established beliefs and assumptions concerning government operations currently are being re-evaluated and questioned. This reset presents an opportunity.

When I coach leaders, I often hear that the image of wallowing stays with them long after I’m gone - even when they don’t feel like wallowing! Ultimately, the thought of wallowing moves their thoughts to intentions, and then, purposeful actions.

We live, we love, we learn, and we leave a legacy.” This profound quotation from Stephen R. Covey has fueled my motivation to keep teaching at Virginia Tech well beyond retirement age and a comfortable pension.

Expectations drive both the leader and follower. Various forms of research suggest that when leaders have higher types of expectations for their followers, those followers often live up to the expectations.

How do people get to a point where they fear safety? How can something like a checklist or an SOP or a safety manager create fear? Our body is equipped with automatic protective wiring that reacts to scary stimuli with a fear response.

For the past 30 years, I’ve been driven to be the best and do the best I can – in nearly any context, personally and professionally. Along the way, I’ve discovered various dimensions of growth that have helped me succeed. I want to pass them on, and share them, so they might help you.

The hard part is getting teams to buy into the team vision to play selfless and trust that if they focus on all the intangibles, the scoring will come and at the end of the game the scoreboard will reflect their efforts.

With more experience traveling the real world seeing safety programs in action (or inaction) I realized that words matter. They not only communicate, but they can shape the very approach you take to your safety programming. They can get you stuck or they can liberate your safety culture.

The term “Safety culture” has become like the term “engagement” in popular management writings. There is no common agreement on the term. We are left with (mis)interpretations of terms like “safety culture,” which lead to haphazard attempts at changing organizations toward improvement.

Twenty-five years ago, as a young safety professional, I struggled to find a set of leadership practices I could call my own. In 1996, I wrote about many of the leadership practices I was already using but found more clearly established in Servant Leadership (Sarkus, 1996).

Behavior is not right or wrong, good or bad. It just is. It is neutral. Approach behaviors with the dispassionate, objective view of a scientist. Not with emotions.

Hearing loss isn’t the first injury that comes to mind when an arc fault occurs. The light and heat emitted by the massive electrical explosion – the arc flash – can cause life-threatening and life-altering burns to the skin, compression injuries and loss of limbs if workers are left unprotected.

It wasn’t until recently that we started understanding that people with different personalities tend to naturally pay more attention to safety attributes like work environment, people, equipment, processes, etc. based on their personality tendencies.

Not many people walk around throughout their day with a risk assessment in hand. We should, however, always have an informal risk assessment tool in our mind that allows us to perform at least a cursory assessment until we can dig deeper or in a more formal way.

The knowledge gap within utilities, construction, and related industries is more of a growing concern than ever — especially when it comes to serious injuries and exposures. 

The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.

Whether in mining, construction, fabrication and assembly, equipment installation and repair, or other industries, there is a shortage of skilled tradesmen/ technicians to do essential work.

Individual oversights and errors can and will eventually lead to unwanted consequences. However, we need multiple checks and balances that limit fallout and the continuance of loss, or possibly, an egregious event.

In the last decade or so many organizations have been placing more of a focus on Serious Injury and Fatality prevention (SIF). The theory behind the traditional “Safety Pyramid” (or Heinrich Safety Triangle) says if we reduce incidents at the “base” of the pyramid, it follows we will reduce incidents at the top of the pyramid at an approximately proportional rate. 

Since health and safety initiatives and overall health and safety commentary seem to be focused towards frontline workers, Positional Leaders appear to be getting a free pass on the safety train that already left the station a long, long time ago.

If there’s one thing the global business community has learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ebb, flow and unfold on the daily, wreaking having on bottom lines in every corner of the world in its wake, it’s the outright imperative for companies to be agile “from top to bottom.”

Evans Roofing Company, Inc., with its subsidiaries Charles F. Evans (union) and CFE, Inc. (non-union), is a building envelope contractor licensed in 46 states. Charles F. Evans and CFE, Inc. are the only commercial roofing and wall panel contractors to hold the VPP STAR mobile work force designation.

For all the COVID-19 safety guidelines circulating, some hundreds of pages long, basic best practices are straightforward and known by most Americans. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, recently recounted them in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Women have made amazing strides in many fields and industries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Unfortunately, there are many others in which it remains a big challenge for a woman to rise to the top — or even, in some cases, to enter the industry at all.

New Pureflo- Supplied Air Respirators for grinding, welding and painting. Respirators are NIOSH approved with ANSI Head, Eye - Face Protection, along with three welding lens options, optional left front window, QR Suspension, APF of 1000.

HEMCO Emergency Showers are fully assembled and ready for installation to water supply and waste systems. This unit is equipped with a pull rod activated shower and push handle eye/face wash for quick rinsing of eyes, face and body. 

The Guarddog Self Closing Safety Gate from Bluewater Mfg., Inc is tough, durable and easy to install.

PIP’s stellar growth over the last 10 years has positioned itself as a global leader in Safety Hand Protection and places PIP well on its way to becoming a referenced-leader in the Personal Protective Equipment market space.

Beat the heat and enjoy a ChillOut™ moment. ChillOut evaporative cooling towels are XL and waffled to hold more water for effective, instant cooling that lasts. Portable and easy-to-use,  simply add water.

Se-Kure Domes and Mirrors is a true Made in America manufacturer of mirrored safety products. Full 360-degree domes from 18” to 60” in diameter, 180 & 90-degree domes are also available.

MCR Safety is proud to announce that Paul Harris will be leading our Sales and Customer Service as well as Consulting and Compliance teams as our newly appointed Vice President, US Sales. 　

From arc flash, respiratory, foot, hand and fall protection to AEDs, gas detectors, training courses and more, attendees at Safety 2013 had a chance to check out cutting edge safety products at ISHN's booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center and vote on their favorites. The votes have been counted and the winners have been determined/

With more than 500 exhibitors showing their products and services at the ASSE Professional Development Conference & Exposition, it’s not a bad idea to plan your itinerary in advance, so you won’t miss something you really want to see.

If you're headed to the Safety 2014 Conference & Expo in Orlando June 8-11, make sure you stop by the ISHN booth to vote on the top, most innovative EHS products in the second annual ASSE Attendee Choice Awards.

From arc flash, respiratory, foot, hand and fall protection to gas detectors, training courses and more, attendees at Safety 2014 had a chance to check out cutting edge safety products at ISHN's booth in Orlando's Orange County Convention Center and vote on their favorites. The votes have been counted and the winners have been determined.

Workers in many fields – construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, emergency response, firefighters among others – toil in high heat stress conditions. These tasks can lead to rapid increases in body temperature that raise the risk of heat-related illnesses.

VelocityEHS, the global leader in cloud-based environment, health, safety (EHS) and sustainability solutions, announced today it has acquired Spiramid, developer of the most advanced and easy-to-use system for managing industrial hygiene (IH). The acquisition adds Spiramid’s occupational safety & health software and unparalleled IH expertise to the most trusted EHS platform in the industry.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a Squishy Robot, dropped from a helicopter or a drone to transmit crucial environmental data to emergency responders at disaster scenes.

Excessive noise is prevalent across industries. From manufacturing to construction, agriculture to oil and gas, more than 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise each year.1 Wherever unsafe levels of noise exist, employers are responsible for providing hearing protection devices (HPDs).

Allergan plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a global pharmaceutical company. ISHN asked David Eherts, PhD, CIH, Vice President Global EHS, based in Madison, NJ, to explain how the company is implementing the “New View” of safety.

ISHN recently exchanged an email Q&A with Amanda Alexander, global product manager for Emerson’s Location Awareness System.

Responses provided by Carol Hanover, Field Director, Risk Control, Travelers

We sat down with Matthew Elson, CEO of SHE Softwares to discuss implementing safety programs, and a positive safety culture for workers. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

The G7 connected wearable from Blackline Safety (TSX.V: BLN) was one of five products highlighted by the Globe and Mail in their new Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing companies. Having earned position No. 231 on the ranking, Blackline achieved a three-year revenue growth of 145%.

When loud noises cannot be reduced or eliminated through engineering controls, workers who are exposed to them must use hearing protection devices (HPDs) to conserve their hearing. This notion is not new, nor is the concept that HPDs require fit-testing to be effective.

eCompliance unveils its newest advancement in their product line-up at NXT 2019: The Future of EHS, their annual conference. The concept version of the eC Edge App was announced to attendees today to give customers and prospects a first-hand look at the advanced functionality the product will begin to offer in 2020.

Tainted love: Johnson & Johnson recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder after the Food and Drug Administration found asbestos in one container, The New York Times reports. The company, which once marketed its baby, body, and wellness products as being “for all you love,” has long denied that its talc-based products ever contained cancer-causing asbestos, but it faces more than 15,000 lawsuits from customers who say their products caused them to develop ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, a rare cancer linked to asbestos.

Traditionally, safety departments get opinions and guesses thrown at them, says Stinson. There may be a hazard. Equipment doesn’t seem to be working. “Now you have objective data all mapped out. It’s very important that this is objective data, so you know for a fact that a part of plant is leaking. It’s a fact, not a suspicion,” he says.

Back in 2015 I had a widow-maker heart attack. That near-death event focused attention on my heart health, particularly when I push to physical extremes during mountain backpacking. 

Depending on where you live, you may encounter severe weather if you must be on U.S. roadways this week, whether you're driving for work or traveling to and from the homes of loved ones. Forecasters are predicting multiple storms from coast to coast, with conditions worsening as we get closer to Thanksgiving. Some 55 million travelers are expected to travel 50 miles or more from their homes for the holiday, according to AAA. That’ll make it the second-highest Thanksgiving travel volume since AAA began tracking in 2000.