I started this series by comparing the debate between cognitivism and behaviorism to the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Last week, I suggested that rather than pick one, it makes more sense to pick a holistic approach that combines aspects of each -part chicken, part egg – chegg. Or, in [...]

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A couple of years ago, as I was preparing to address a conference of safety professionals in New Brunswick, I decided to look at the ideas and trends changing the way safety professionals are doing their jobs and will do their jobs in the future. To prepare for the presentation, I found it helpful to [...]

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The National Fire Protection Association standard for “Electrical Safety in the Workplace” (NFPA 70E) calls for an arc-flash hazard analysis. To comply you must determine both a “flash protection boundary” and the personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements for people working within that boundary. In Part 1 of this series, we’ll explain what a boundary is [...]

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OSHA has about 2,200 inspectors. That includes inspectors from the 26 states that run their own state programs.
OSHA conducted just under 40,000 inspections in FY 2004. Inspectors working for state programs conducted just under 60,000 during the same period. That sounds like a lot. But when you consider how many workplaces there are in the [...]

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Have you just started in a new job at your company? Been promoted? Transferred? Or joined a new company? Watch out for that first year; it’s a killer. This is one of the things we learned from a recent survey of 223 recruiters. According to respondents, a shocking 18 percent of managers – nearly one [...]

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The first two parts of this series provided a thumb nail sketch of two schools of thought in behavioral safety: Cognitivism and behaviorism. Let’s now change the perspective of the discussion from the theorists to the practitioners. After all, once the arguments have been made and the theories debated, it’s the safety professional who serves [...]

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Last week in Part 1 of this series, we talked about the advantages of hiring an outside safety and health loss services provider. We also discussed the various kinds of providers and the advantages and disadvantages associated with each. Now we’ll talk about how to plan your strategy for using the services and thus pave [...]

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Summer is peak season for children’s organized baseball, basketball, soccer and other sports-and, unfortunately, for sports-related injuries to young bodies and limbs. If you’re involved in running any of these activities or have a child who’s participating in them, there’s an interesting study about sports-related injuries to kids from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons [...]

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Last week, we looked at the apparent conflict between the OSHA Recordkeeping Rule , which requires employers to give employees, former employees and employee representatives access to illness and injury records and the federal Health Information Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA), which bans employers from using or disclosing records containing personal health information about [...]

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You might be contemplating moving to a different industry. If so, you’re not alone. In our recent survey of managers, almost all of the respondents said they were thinking about changing industries and 72% were actively pursuing opportunities outside their industry.
The good news is that safety is an expertise that can be applied in [...]

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