Life and Safety Consultants Inc. and Interactive Visualization Center are collaborating to create virtual safety training simulations of on-site training scenarios, worker training and safety, equipment repair and facility design. Life and Safety will focus on the training side of the equation, and IVC will provide the virtual product. The companies will share a booth at the 2015 Auto Summit February 23-25 in Greenville, SC. Read the entire story, featured on Tuesday, February 10, 2015 in GSA Business here.

When I spoke at an EHS Today/Dyneema forum during the 2014 ASSE Professional Development Conference and Expo in Orlando, Fla., I conducted an informal hand safety poll. I asked the audience: “How many people have cut their hands?” Everyone in the room raised a hand.

When I asked how many people have had stitches on one of their hands, many people in the room kept their hands raised. Then I asked, “How many people have had stitches more than once?” In a room full of safety professionals, I learned that most people have scratched their hands, and many have had stitches multiple times.

Ever scar on your hand has a story. They key to improving workplace hand safety is helping others see and feel the same lesson that you learned from your hand injury – without the pain.

For example, several years ago, I used a utility knife to cut plastic. The plastic was harder than I expected, and I had to apply pressure to make the cut. When I applied the pressure, the blade broke and my hand slammed into the broken blade stuck in the plastic. I didn’t want to look at the damage because I knew that I’d made a mistake. The incident cost me six stitches and a good dose of humility.

As a result of the incident, I cringe every time I see a utility knife. I have a personal, hands-on connection with the risk. A productive hand safety initiative helps others see the reality of the risk without the painful experience.

The Hands-On-Safety Champion Program is a process that reduces hand injuries with employee involvement and a hands-on reality check. I cringe when I see a utility knife, and my instinct is to pull back when I have to use one because I remember my lesson. The goal of the program is to instill the same instinctive reaction in others without the pain.

Here’s how the Hands-On-Safety Champion Program works.

You choose natural leaders (champions) in your workforce and give them a responsibility to focus on hand safety. The program is a 360-degree process that promotes identification, coaching, and mentoring through positive peer-to-peer influence.

Champions conduct focused hand safety surveys with survey cards. The cards have 10 specific bullets that help champions evaluate common risks that cause hand injuries. Champions also use the platform to coach and mentor coworkers. The focused surveys are an opportunity to share their stories or make hands-on connection.

STEP 1: Select your Safety Champions

You need good people to lead the charge. Each supervisor should appoint a safety champion for his or her team. The champions lead the initiative to coach, mentor, and observe safe hand behavior in their areas.

Safety champions should possess the following qualities:

• Positive attitude
• Strong leadership skills
• Interest in safety
• Conscientious
• A desire to achieve safety goals

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A Four-Step Process For Safety Success With a Temporary Workforce

Chances are, if you haven’t utilized temporary employees in your workplace, you’ve interacted with or heard accounts from someone who has. The use of a variable workforce to minimize human capital expense has resulted in substantial cost benefits for employers with fluctuating production schedules. In turn, there is an abundance of staffing agencies popping up, eager and ready to recruit for and fill those contingent positions.

With the demand for high-quality workers in large quantities coupled with short time-to-fill requirements, it is easy to see how certain details are skimped on in the process and employee safety, believe it or not, is a huge one. OSHA’s April 2013 initiative to protect temporary workers sought to bring attention to the issue of safety for temporary workers and change how worker safety is handled by both the host and actual employer. There are responsibilities for employee safety on both sides of the employment fence, and I will identify where partnership opportunities lies between a host employer and staffing agency.

As the former safety leader for a large staffing company, I can say with confidence that when asked, “What does safety mean to you?” leaders from nine out of 10 staffing companies will tell you plainly: “workers’ comp.” To a safety professional, that response sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

Read the entire article here.

When I was an OSHA compliance officer, I performed several fatality investigations. One of my early investigations involved a fatality in a grain silo. The silo’s bottom part had an auger that transported corn. The corn had formed a crust over the auger and prevented the flow of corn. Two teenage cousins entered the silo to shovel the corn to another opening in the side of the silo. They had to walk on top of the 15-ft pile of corn to do so.

While they moved the grain to the side opening, they dislodged the crust above the bottom auger. As corn began to funnel through the bottom auger, the flow created a whirlpool effect and the boys could not escape. It was as if they were stuck in quicksand. They screamed for help but the response was too slow. One boy stood on a board on top of the corn holding his cousin’s hands as he was sucked into the grain funnel. He could not hold him and he watched as his cousin was pulled into the corn where he suffocated. The incident happened in the early 1990s, and I remember the investigation as if it were yesterday. I had to relive the incident in an interview with the surviving cousin. That was one of the hardest conversations I ever had because I could picture every word he described and I could feel the pain he felt for his loss. My memories of the investigation are vivid; but can you imagine how vivid the memory is for the cousin who lived? Incident investigations are designed to answer the question “why” so that we can prevent future incidents. No one wants to investigate an incident because it is a reminder that injuries impact people. An investigation process is vital to the success of any SH&E program because it turns a reactive process into a proactive tool. Investigation processes driven by systematic urgency and discipline prevent future problems when they identify the real cause of the problem—and management takes action to solve the problem(s). We learn from mistakes to avoid future interviews similar to the one I had with the survivor.

What characteristics do great investigation programs have?

Read David Lynn’s entire article here: Incident Investigations – Four Critical Stages from Professional Safety Magazine.

Life and Safety is being honored as one of the best performing businesses in the state of South Carolina at SC Biz News Roaring Twenties awards this year! The Roaring Twenties is an annual event hosted by SC Biz News and CertusBank where the South Carolina’s top business leaders gather to celebrate the best-performing companies in South Carolina. 20 Large and 20 small companies will be recognized at the event for a total of 40 honorees in an exciting countdown format that culminates in the crowning of the two best-performing companies in the state.

A great big THANK YOU to our clients, friends and family – and we will continue to work hard to remain one of the top performing companies in South Carolina for many years to come.