Following these principles of leadership will help you and your employees focus on job safety:
- Don’t walk by. It is everyone’s responsibility to prevent any potentially unsafe acts and conditions they witness from turning into accidents.
- STOP! Encourage employees to stop working whenever they feel unsafe, no matter what reason they give.
- Focus on a safe working environment. If you expect your workers to work safely, make their workplace as safe as possible.
- Don’t blame the worker first. Unsafe ways of working, accidents, incidents, and ill health aren’t necessarily the worker’s fault. The problem often comes from less obvious causes, such as decisions by management.
- Use your workforce for ideas. Employees often have a more accurate idea than you or your managers about which safety and health practices will work, because they deal with these issues every day.
- Be patient. Don’t expect quick wins. Improvements will emerge over time, but only if you stick with them.
- Explain your decisions. Just telling workers that something is wrong or a safety risk isn’t enough. If they’re to act on the information you provide, they need to know why and how to avoid harm.
- Lead by example. Your behavior sends powerful signals. If you carry out your job in a safe way, your workers are more likely to do the same. If you don’t, they won’t imitate you.
- Focus on co-operation. Treat your subcontractors in the same way as employees by encouraging them to communicate with each other.
- Don’t neglect occupational health. If you look after the health, as well as the safety, of your workers today, you’re less likely to create problems for them or your business tomorrow.
Sound advice!
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Viagra is the most frequently counterfeited product on the market. Running a close second – and of far more concern to workplace safety experts – come electrical components. The Electrical Safety Foundation International has identified more than 1 million fake parts that can easily fail, putting workers at risk of serious injury or death from electrical accidents.
To protect your employees against this danger (and make sure that you’re getting the parts you’re paying for), manufacturers offer these guidelines:
- Buy from an authorized dealer whenever possible. However, bear in mind that counterfeit parts are often mixed in with the genuine article, making them difficult for reputable dealers to detect. Also, a broker might be your only source for discontinued items.
- Examine the packaging. Check for such obvious discrepancies as logos that are missing or don’t look right, misspelled or badly edited text, etc.; and make sure that shipping documents and parts numbers on the packaging match.
- Check the product. To make sure that a part looks and feels right, lay it next to a genuine component and see if they match. If they don’t, have an expert examine the product using a microscope, X-ray, or ion chromatography technology that can detect tampering.
- Test the part. Because many counterfeits can pass basic functionality tests, it makes sense to send any suspicious products to an independent lab for testing under a variety of conditions. This is the best way to detect actual manufacturer components that were discarded because of damage or quality control failures. Don’t choose a lab based strictly on price; ask for a detailed listing of its procedures and inspect the facility in person.
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If your workers need to reach, lift and carry, twist their bodies, or perform other activities that place them under strain, their shoulders might be at risk.
As the most mobile and one of the most versatile joints in the body, the shoulder is highly vulnerable to musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs). Recovering from these injuries takes an average of 21 days – one of the longest recovery periods for on-the-job accidents.
To help keep your workers’ shoulders healthy, and your Workers Comp premiums under control, we’d recommend these guidelines.
- Minimize lifting. Provide mechanical assists (carts, slings, dollies, jacks, etc.) to raise and hold objects. Put materials as close as practical to where they will be used
- Lighten the load. When lifting can’t be eliminated, or when objects (such as tools) must be held at arm’s length, make sure these items are as light as possible, In construction, for example, use lighter-weight building materials. Have a team lift all heavy objects.
- Control motion. One of the most dangerous situations is a “save” – when a load shifts or slips and a worker attempts to prevent a fall. To reduce this danger, hold work pieces in place using a jack or brace.
- Improve the grip. Lifting requires more force, and is more difficult (and more likely to cause injury) when there’s no easy way to grasp the object – for example, drywall panels. One solution: apply removable suction handles and temporary handles to flat surfaces.
- Encourage rest and stretching. Workers can minimize damage from jobs that put stress on their shoulder joints by taking frequent short breaks (15-20 seconds) and stretching gently to relieve tension in over-worked muscles and ligaments.
For more information, please get in touch with our workplace safety experts.
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No matter how much care you take to keep job sites safe and finish projects according to specifications, accidents happen. Consider these scenarios:
- an improperly installed kitchen cabinet shelf in a home you built collapses, injuring the owner
- one of your employees posts a blog accusing a competitor of shoddy workmanship
- a visitor to your worksite trips over an air hose, falls, and fractures her leg
To protect your business against the financial threat of costly litigation from such all-too-common mishaps, you need construction liability insurance.
This coverage will pay costs and legal expenses, up to the amount of the policy, for something your business did, or failed to do, that damages a third party, related to 1) your products or services (products and completes operations); 2) allegations of slander (personal and advertising injury); or 2) injury on your premises or job site (medical expenses).
As a common business practice, both residential and commercial clients will require you,and your subcontractors, to show evidence of construction liability insurance before starting a job.
In general, residential contractors should buy coverage two to three times the amount of the construction budget. Commercial contractors usually carry policies in the multi-million dollar range. Firms that face higher risk of damages, for example, roofing contractors or those in specialized trades, tend to have more coverage. Some contractors prefer to pay their premiums up front, while others make a down payment and finance the premium over the policy period (six months to a year).
No matter how large or small your business, having comprehensive construction liability insurance is always the best policy.
We’d be happy to review your situation and recommend the coverage that’s best suited for you.
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I do a lot of reading. Here are some thoughts inspired by the latest round:
- No person who produces from the heart will go for naught. Career success requires both inner and external engineering.
- As the scope of your life becomes bigger, less will be under your control.
- “I will be happy….. when” is meaningless. Be happy now!
- Comfort is an illusion if sought from the outside. Do you want to be comfortable or awesome?
- To map your career path, ask “Where can I help the most people with the least amount of energy?”
- When overwhelmed by information, we lose clarity of thought, which comes in the spaces between information – yet another reason to meditate.
- Do you identify with your limitations – and let them define you?
- Have these “limitations” blocked you from career success?
- Personal peace is about our internal chemistry. All happiness, despair and other human experiences have a biochemical basis.
- Every person is an energy field functioning at different levels of capability.
- How loyal, how engaged, and awesome do you want your people to be?
- You can’t bullshit yourself into well being.
- Situations don’t make you – they expose you.
- Use time off to reward employees.
- Personality comes from the word persona, which in Greek drama meant a “mask.” Like a mask our personality is a construct – a story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
- All creativity is an imitation of nature.
- Conduct scavenger hunts, field trips, lunch-and -learns, suggestion meetings, crossword puzzles, jeopardy games, volunteer projects, blood donations, fun clubs, etc.
- If people feel good, they will______________
- Over-committed heroes end up becoming martyrs. Avoid this behavior pattern!
- Can you be peaceful where you are or must you go someplace to feel that way?
- HR’s focus on the negative does a disservice to human well being.
- Work doesn’t cause stress; your reaction to it does.
- Have a plan for where you and your business will evolve.
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Eggnog, latkes, old friends, parties – and a lot of beveraging! HR That Works wishes you a safe and happy holiday season! As the host of your company party, you have a legal obligation to make sure that attendees get home safe. Here’s our list of tips to help you meet this responsibility:
- Make party attendance voluntary.
- Hire bartenders trained to spot and handle intoxicated revelers.
- Provide non-alcoholic beverages.
- Give each guest a limited number of drink tickets, instead of an open bar.
- Serve filling food – not just chips and pretzels – whenever alcohol is available.
- Cut off alcohol service at least an hour before the party ends.
- Stop serving intoxicated guests immediately; don’t wait until they’re ready to leave.
- Never ask an apparently impaired guest if they’re able to drive home – they aren’t.
- Provide a taxi service for guests who require or request it.
- Have a friend or family member pick up intoxicated guests.
- Arrange for discounted rooms at the event location or a nearby hotel.
Finally, have a fun party. Think like good ‘ol Mr. Fezziwig!
Accommodating Religious Needs
The holiday season is an ideal time to focus on religious accommodation in in the workplace. Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on religion. We’ve seen more of these claims in recent years, with thousands of claims filed in 2012. Unsurprising, many of these cases include allegations of discrimination based national origin (i.e. someone claims discrimination because they’re of Arab origin, as well as Muslim).
The EEOC offers this definition of “religion:”
“In most cases, whether or not a practice or a belief is religious is not an issue. However, the EEOC defines religious practices to include moral or ethical beliefs as to what’s right and wrong, which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional, religious views. The fact that no religious group espouses such beliefs, or that the religious group to which the individual professes to belong might not accept such belief, will not determine whether the belief is a religious belief of the employee or prospective employee. The phrase ‘religious practices’ includes both religious observances and practices.” Also, bear in mind that:
- It’s unlawful for an employer to fail to accommodate reasonably the religious practices of an employee or prospective employee, unless the employer demonstrates that accommodation will mean undue hardship in conducting its business.
- An employer may not ask about an employee’s religious background unless justified by business necessity.”
For more information on religious expression in the workplace, check out: 1) EEOC guidelines and FAQS on religious discrimination: 2) an EEOC memo on accommodating religious expression; and 3) religious accommodation practices at the University of Missouri ( a great education, period).
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Following these principles of leadership will help you and your employees focus on job safety:
