COVID-19: Leverage Technology for Efficient COVID-19 Response 
On March 11, the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Health and Safety (CHAS) held an on-line “CHAS-chat” that discussed Quality Data for Safer Experiments. Given the increasing use of general-purpose search engines such as Google to collect hazard information, … Read More
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Avoiding Blame in Incident Management & Incident Investigations
In the previous article, The Purpose of Incident Management & Incident Investigations, the foundational principles of learning and improving were discussed. Further, in the article How we React Matters the concept of how organizations react to news from the workforce … Read More
The Purpose of Incident Management & Incident Investigations
Incident management and incident investigations, while not typically welcome due to their nature of something having gone wrong, are a necessary tool in any EHS professional‘s toolbelt. They have been getting a bad reputation lately and pushed to ‘lagging indicator’ … Read More
Management Observations: Challenges and Pitfalls
In previous articles we have addressed the importance of real-time management observations. Such observations help responsible managers understand actual job performance – rather than hoped for performance. We have also described what these management observations should look like and offered … Read More
Creating a Data Action Plan to Turn Data Insights into Action
I previously assumed that data always led to insight, but I now firmly believe that is not the case. Regardless of our role in an organization, we tend to have a bias that if we look hard enough, good things … Read More
Getting the Most from Your Management Observations
In previous articles we have discussed what management observations should look like and why they are so important to safety. This article will look more deeply at “how” these observations maximize their effectiveness. There are several steps an organization should … Read More
The Drawbacks of Safety Leading Indicators
It is important for organizations to begin looking further “upstream” in their safety processes when determining how effective their overall safety program is. Some have coined this proactive method of insight as a “pre-injury investigation” (Conklin, 2012). For example, consider … Read More
Developing COVID Training Programs
The 2020 COVID pandemic presents important challenges for organizations of all sizes. For example, even small restaurants that are able to operate with indoor dining often have to close for periods of time when one of their employees tests positive … Read More
Look, Listen and Learn: The Path to Effective Management Observations
For some, the term “observation,” as typically used in safety, has a negative connotation. It is often associated with checklists and a search for “bad behaviors” in need of correction. Clumsily conducted worker-focused observations/inspections can easily appear patronizing and leave … Read More
How’s It Really Going: The Importance of Management Observations
How often after a significant incident does your management act surprised? “We had no idea,” or “We have a really low TRIR rate; how could this have happened to us?” Well, of course, surprises do happen. But far too often … Read More