Complacency kills. The history of tragic accidents in workplaces is fraught with examples of companies that thought they were safe because their Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) was low and/or because they were devoting considerable time and money to various … Read More
Author Archives: Jim Loud
Getting the Most Out of Your Safety Committees
Safety committees are a longstanding part of the safety tradition, but do they really add value? Though not officially required by OSHA, safety committees are a prerequisite to participating in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program and are mandatory in several states … Read More
Creating Safety Bridges vs. Safety Silos – An EHS Opportunity to Improve
All company staff and support functions (e.g., HR, Quality, Procurement, IT, etc.) are subject to silo building. But silos are inefficient and can cause extra expenses while isolating company functions into unintegrated sects that act in their own interest more … Read More
Safety, Commonsense, and Nonsense
Nonsense “Safety is nothing more than using common sense! In the aftermath of accidents, 85% are found to have been preventable.” “According to safety professionals, 4 in 5 serious injuries are the result of workers not being sensible on the job and … Read More
Don’t Get Stuck in Hindsight Bias – Best Practices in Incident Investigations
“How could they have been so stupid?” “Why didn’t they show more common sense?” “They should have seen it coming.” “The cause was clearly human error.” “Why didn’t they just follow the procedures?” “This accident was clearly preventable.” Do these … Read More
Don’t Waste Your Safety Resources: Promote Worker Engagement
The most important asset we have in safety is our workforce. There are far more of them than there are of us and no one understands the work, and often the hazards, better than they do. In addition, as workers … Read More
