Summer Safety Resources

Help your employees fight complacency and keep their family safe this summer.

Guide

Summer Safety in the Workplace

Guide

Fighting Familiarity: Overcoming Complacency in the Workplace

Resource Kit

Summer Safety

Complacency blog posts

The Solution to HazCom Complacency is Hiding in Plain Sight

The rules for hazard communication are clear, and safety data sheet requirements and chemical spill protocols are equally well defined. But chemical safety continues to be misunderstood or overlooked by some workers, putting those employees and their peers at a greater danger of serious injury.  In a recent article in Safety + Health magazine, safety…

Cold Weather Safety Strategies for Warm Workplaces

For workplaces in northern climates, cold-weather hazards are par for the course. When fall turns to winter, almost no one is surprised when snow and ice make driving treacherous. Safety professionals in these regions are typically well-versed in the mitigating steps they can take to prevent slips and trips caused by slush and ice. They…

Poor Air Quality Can Affect More Than Your Health

While we’re approaching the end of smog season, late-summer wildfire smoke patterns and shifting regional weather systems are still contributing to poor air quality. As wildfire activity continues to affect many parts of North America, it’s a good time to consider how air quality affects workers in your facility.   Most people don’t realize that human…

How to Protect Workers From 3 Elements of Summer Danger

Summer is well underway, and for a lot of people that means relaxation and vacation. But risk never takes a holiday, and just like its seasonal counterparts, the July to September timeframe is filled with its share of unique dangers. From soaring temperatures and severe weather to weekends spent on the water, there are plenty…

FIFA Fatigue Could Affect Workers (Even If They’re Not Watching)

Every four years, the FIFA World Cup consumes audiences worldwide. According to Sports Illustrated, “the FIFA World Cup is the most-watched sporting event on the planet—nothing else comes close.” This year, Canada, Mexico and the USA will co-host the tournament in 16 different cities with 48 teams from around the globe competing in 104 matches.…

Stop Hitting Yourself: No-Blame Accountability Requires Self-Forgiveness

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that means it’s the perfect time to take a look at a rarely discussed form of blame that is common in the workplace and has significant effects on culture, health, productivity and safety: negative self-talk. From the HOP principle “blame fixes nothing” to the “no-blame mindset” proposed by…

3 Overlooked Spring Driving Hazards

Winter driving is a perilous proposition in many regions. Snow in the air and ice on the roads can make for treacherous conditions for motorists. And the fact that it gets dark so early in the winter only compounds the danger of driving in the colder months. So it’s no surprise that most drivers breathe…

3 Open-Ended Questions to Boost Worker Safety and Engagement

Engagement is a crucial element for success in safety, quality and performance. Studies show that engaged workers are more likely to stay at an organization in the long term and are less prone to chronic human factors like burnout. From a safety perspective, engagement helps workers keep their eyes and mind on task and helps…

Do Well-Stocked First Aid Kits Change How You Think About Risk?

Risk perception is a tricky thing. While risk is real, how it’s perceived is in the eye of the beholder. And all too often, the severity of a risk doesn’t necessarily dictate the attention it gets. According to an article from Environmental Health Perspectives, “Risk perception is a highly personal process of decision making, based…

Recognizing Complacency: Why You Need to Act Now

In any given moment, it’s hard to recognize whether you’re in a state of complacency. Here’s a quick test: ask yourself, “Am I being complacent?” See what we did there? You’ve likely figured out by now that if you’re thinking about complacency—enough to ask yourself that question—then you’re not being complacent. But stop thinking about…

One Major Thing That Contributes to Utility Knife Incidents

A handful of issues always seem to factor into utility knife incidents. Using dull blades is one, and so is cutting towards the body instead of away from it. Ditto with using excessive force to cut, which can lead to employees inadvertently slicing or stabbing themselves. And that’s not to mention that cutting with too…

4 Safety Tips to Stay Alive in the Dead of Winter

Winter weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Sudden temperature swings, freezing rain and heavy snowfall can catch workers and organizations off guard, forcing people to adapt quickly in environments that are already unforgiving. Cold weather doesn’t just challenge equipment and infrastructure—frozen doors and slippery roads—it affects the way people think and the human factors that influence…

Contributing Factors of Complacency

Complacency is often listed as a contributing factor when incidents occur. But what are the contributing factors of complacency? It’s essential to know how to identify complacency because unlike states of mind like rushing, frustration, or fatigue, complacency is almost impossible to notice in the moment. It’s something you recognize as the cause after an…

What Role Do Stories Play in Holiday Safety?

December is a time to plan for Christmas and that means engaging in activities you don’t often do—like increased cooking or baking (or attempting new recipes)—and getting caught up in the rush of the season.  There is an influx of people on the roads to do their holiday shopping, get extra groceries, and visit more…

Road Rage is Getting Worse: Calm the Culture With These Tips

In terms of daily activities, few are as dangerous as driving your car. And when it comes to driving safely, having your human factors under control can affect whether you make it to your destination on time and in one piece. Whether you’re in a hurry and going over the speed limit to get somewhere…

November is Unofficially Watch for Wildlife Month

If you’re a hunter—or you know someone who is—you likely know the importance of 24/7 safety in November. But it’s also a time when people like to enjoy outdoor activities in the crisp air before the full-on winter weather arrives. For some, this includes scenic walks, hikes or drives to take in any remaining fall…

Complacency: Recognizing the Signs Before It’s Too Late

Complacency can lead to diminished attention to safety, a reduced sensitivity to hazards, lower productivity levels, a decline in the quality of work and decreased employee engagement. The problem with complacency is that people often don’t recognize the state until it’s too late and an incident or a near miss has occurred.  It’s important to…

Don’t Drive Yourself to Complacency

As with any task, the more a person drives, the more familiar they become with the vehicle. When their comfort level increases, a driver becomes more likely to let their guard down in less threatening areas. This is textbook complacency, a dangerous human factor that can be challenging to recognize because of how naturally it…

Are You Guilty of Using Complacency Scapegoats?

Complacency can happen to anyone, anywhere. It’s not just something that happens at work, it can also occur at home or while driving. When a person becomes comfortable with what they’re doing and no longer thinks about any associated hazards, that’s complacency. It’s dangerous and difficult to recognize, but there is a natural reason our…

5 Free Resources For Complex Safety Issues

Workplace safety is an incredibly complicated field, and it can be a tall order to stay on top of the foundational elements of a safety management system. It gets even more complicated beyond the basics, once you account for further EHS-related challenges like lackluster supervisor support for safety and human factors that threaten to make…

3 Critical Factors in Arc Flash Safety

Arc flash incidents are a surprisingly challenging safety issue to contend with. On one hand, the basics of arc flash safety are clear, from wearing PPE and using insulated tools to de-energizing equipment whenever possible. On the other hand, it’s hard to even say how many arc flash incidents occur each year. The National Fire…

3 Overlooked Elements of Water Safety

It’s a sure sign of summer: the temperature begins to rise and people flock to the water to stay cool. And because so many people head to the beach and hang around their pools on the weekends and during their vacations, safety managers quite rightly start reminding workers about the need to stay safe around…

Is Knowledge Decay Putting Your Workforce in Danger?

Knowledge decay is the natural process of forgetting something over time. It happens with everything—from skills that have fallen out of practice to forgetting the names of people you haven’t seen in years or directions to places you haven’t visited in a while. And make no mistake, the consequences of knowledge decay can turn from…

Are Organizations Choosing to Let Complacency Affect Workers?

Diagnosing the root cause is usually the first step companies take after an incident occurs. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), the top three leading causes of preventable injury-related death—poisoning, falls, and motor vehicle accidents—account for 86% of all preventable deaths. While complacency isn’t specifically named as a cause, what are the chances that…

Organizational Complacency: Three Symptoms of Disordered Systems

Getting a stronger bottom line and delivering more quality products or services in less time using fewer resources—this is the business ideal. On paper, it looks like a simple math equation. But organizations are more than a neatly ordered plan to execute: they are made up of people who are influenced by numerous internal and…

Human Factors and Slips, Trips and Falls: Your December Digital Display

December is an exciting time of year, jam-packed with festive activities. The approach of winter holidays has us decorating, shopping, baking, hosting parties, exchanging gifts and everything else that comes with making the season merry. But along with the fun comes a dangerous element: the influence of human factors, which often results in injuries. When…

3 Techniques for Brushing off Winter Complacency

Winter brings with it a number of well-known hazards, including ice and slush—both of which increase the risk of slip incidents. It also brings frigid conditions that can cause cold stress, which is a major problem for people who work outdoors. The winter solstice means shorter days, leading to fatigue and higher rates of driving…

Be Digitally Prepared for September Emergencies

September is here. The kids are back in school and family vacations are over. It’s the transitional month from summer to fall and it brings several pertinent topics for your safety talks, from concussion awareness to food safety. While each of these monthly awareness campaigns can make for a great digital display presentation to broadcast…

August Digital Display Topics Centered Around Human Factors in Traffic Safety

Driving is a 24/7 safety concern, so it’s always a relevant topic to discuss in your workplace, and August is a particularly opportune time to focus on human factors and traffic. National Traffic Safety Month and Brake Safety Awareness Month both occur in August and the first week is dedicated to keeping folks reactive to…

Burning the Olympic Torch at Both Ends Won’t End Well for Workers

The 2024 Summer Olympics are taking place in France this month—hosted in Paris, with events also happening in 16 other cities across France. The multi-sport event will span 16 days starting on July 26, 2024, ending on August 11, 2024, and with some regular events starting as early as July 24. Paris 2024, like all…

How Modern HazCom Safety Can Benefit From Age-Old Risk Management Tactics

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may be over five decades old, but that’s still quite young when you put it into a historical context. After all, people have been thinking about workplace safety for thousands of years. And many contemporary concepts, from risk perception to safety culture, have roots that extend deep into…

Distracted Driving More Common Than Ever: Are We Complacent to the Risks?

Distracted driving is one of the most stubborn safety concerns in North America. Despite decades of increasingly alarming data about the levels of distractions on our roads, the problem continues to afflict drivers everywhere. In the United States, over 3,000 people are killed every year in car collisions caused by distracted driving. The problem isn’t…

The 12 Toolbox Talks of Holiday Safety

The holidays are a busy time for everyone. There’s something to be said about the right decorations to set the tone for the season. But unfortunately for some, the holidays are also a time when injuries and fatalities increase—and it could be because people are so focused on the season that they fail to see…

Use SafeStart Teachings for a Safe Halloween

At Halloween, children can have a hard time staying focused on anything but racing to the next house for candy. This year, why not try a little SafeStart talk to get them thinking about safety? A quick reminder of these common Halloween human factors and other safety tips can help keep them safe as they…

How to Embed Human Factors Management Principles Into Your HazCom Safety Plan

Having a safety system doesn’t mean that people will follow it. It’s a general truism, but also one that can have very specific, and deadly, consequences. To see it in action, one needs to look no further than hazard communication. In his latest article for Occupational Health and Safety Magazine, safety author Ray Prest takes…

Competence, Complacency and Fatal Injuries: The Counter-Intuitive Nature of SIFs

For the past two years, Larry Wilson has hosted expert panels on a range of safety topics. These engaging sessions cover everything from behavior change in safety to deep dives into the tension between production and safety. They’ve become can’t-miss viewing for health and safety professionals, and the next panel on the docket is coming…

Effective Adult Learning Design is Essential to Fight Complacency

Complacency is something that everyone experiences as they get comfortable doing certain tasks. And it’s not only something that occurs in the workplace—experienced drivers think less and less about how dangerous it is to operate a vehicle, yardwork becomes so routine that the possibility of being hurt is not a conscious thought, even cooking seems…

4 Hidden Causes of Falls From Heights in the Workplace

Working at heights always involves the risk of a fall. But it’s not just the steelworker on a skyscraper handling a rivet gun 850 feet in the air who needs to be careful; a dangerous fall can occur even when completing routine tasks like going up a ladder to reach items up on a shelf. …

4 Signs You’re Under the Influence of Complacency

Complacency can lull people into a false sense of security and cause them to downplay any risks that surround them. The more comfortable they get doing something (and nothing bad happens) the less they think about the associated hazards. And the longer they go without an incident, the more confident they become that nothing bad…

How to Go Beyond Compliance for Complete Worker Safety

Achieving compliance is obviously a top priority for safety professionals. And while compliance training is an important element of reducing injuries, it’s not sufficient to fully protect workers from harm.  Compliance training generally does a good job of teaching people rules and procedures, but it doesn’t help prevent injuries off-the-job, which is where the vast…

How Scanning Intersections Can Improve Overall Driving Habits

There’s no question that driving is a dangerous activity.  But despite the massive amount of hazardous energy involved in driving, most people are quite comfortable getting behind the wheel without fear. Unless you’ve recently experienced a close call or an accident, your driving-related judgment is likely clouded by complacency to the extent that you’re not…

The Most Dangerous Time of Day for Driving May Surprise You

For many people, driving is a daily part of life. And because we’re behind the wheel so often, it’s easy to get complacent and forget that driving is a huge responsibility—the driver holds in his or her hands the lives of their passengers and of others on the road.  No matter how experienced or well-trained…

Safety Training: Why You Need to Remember, New to Work—New to Safety

Every year, young people enter the workforce with little to no safety awareness. This presents safety professionals with both an opportunity and a challenge. How do you protect people who have little practice in paying attention to workplace hazards or following safety requirements? Employers have the chance to instill in young workers the importance of…

OSHA’s Top 10 Most Cited Violations for 2017

At the end of September, OSHA announced the preliminary top 10 most frequently cited workplace safety violations for 2017 at the NSC Congress & Expo. The final report is published in the December edition of the NSC’s Safety+Health magazine. The most cited violations should not come as a surprise to anyone—in fact, the top 3…

4 Steps to Preventing Hearing Loss on the Production Line

One of the most common hazards in manufacturing industries is dangerous noise levels. But it’s not always clear to the workers on the production line what the threshold for safe levels is. The length and frequency of exposure play a significant role in noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), and all sounds above 85 decibels (dB) are…

4 Major Safety Issues for the Metal Fabrication Industry

Working in metal fabrication can sometimes require employees to engage in high-risk activities in order to properly perform their duties, including weld and manufacture ferrous materials. If you manage or are responsible for safety in a metal manufacturing facility, you know of the potential hazards that can befall workers. Every employee’s reaction in any situation…

OSHA Announces Policy Change for Monorails Under Crane Standard

The crane is often the first thing you see on a major construction site— they tower hundreds of feet in the air so that they can hoist, lower and horizontally suspend loads across a big construction site. A hazard this big requires particular attention be paid to the crane standard under the construction regulation—especially when…

Can Human Factors Prevent Roof Falls in Mining?

Historically, ground falls have been the most significant hazard for miners. In 1999, 70% of all underground fatalities were caused by roof (the overhead surface of a coal mine) and rib (the side of a pillar, the wall of an entry or the solid coal on the side of any underground passage) falls. Despite significant…

Strategies for Workplace Noise Protection

Modern life is far from peaceful and quiet. Continuous exposure to sound levels above 85 decibels (dB) are harmful and not many people realize how many everyday sounds are louder than the recommended exposure limit—including lawnmowers, power tools, garbage disposals, blenders and food processors. Workplaces can be especially loud and it’s not surprising that occupational…

4 Issues That Impede Foot Safety

A heavy object falling from a height, rolling, or penetrating the worker’s shoe, a slip while carrying a piece of equipment, or a chemical hazard present in the workplace—these can all result in a foot injury that can hurt an employee’s career and determine the long-term direction of their lives. The fallout from a single…

The Most Avoidable Fatalities in Agribusiness

Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in North America. And because farms are often family-owned, the risks not only affect employees but whole families, from children to seniors. Farm operators have to bear in mind both the safety of their workers and their family members who are exposed to numerous hazards from heavy…

Safety Guidelines for Working with Ladders

A ladder might be a common tool, but just like any other piece of equipment, it needs to be used correctly to be safe—something that happens far less than it should. If people used ladders correctly, there would be no need for awareness campaigns like National Ladder Safety Month. But every day 500 workers go…