Introduction

To help identify workplace hazards it's useful to categorize them into easy-to-remember categories. The first three categories represent hazardous conditions. According to SAIF Corporation, a major workers compensation insurer in Oregon, conditions directly account for only 3% of all workplace accidents. The fourth category describes employee behaviors in the workplace that may contribute or cause as much as 95% of all workplace accidents. All four categories represent the surface symptoms of underlying root causes or safety management system weaknesses. Take a look at the accident weed to get a better idea about the relationship between surface symptoms and root causes for accidents.

1. Materials. Hazardous materials include hazardous:

• Liquid and solid chemicals such as acids, bases, solvents, explosives, etc. The hazard communication program is designed to communicate the hazards of chemicals to employees and to make sure they use safe work practices when working with them.

• Solids like metal, wood, and plastic. Raw materials used to manufacture products are usually bought in large quantities and can cause injuries or fatalities in many ways.

• Gases like hydrogen sulfide, methane, etc. Gas may be extremely hazardous if leaked into the atmosphere. Employees should know the signs and symptoms related to hazardous gases in the workplace.

2. Equipment. This area includes machinery and tools used to produce or process goods. These examples all represent hazardous conditions in the workplace. Hazardous equipment includes machinery and tools.

• Hazardous equipment should be properly guarded so that it's virtually impossible for a worker to be placed in a danger zone around moving parts that could cause injury or death. A preventive maintenance program should be in place to make sure equipment operates properly. A corrective maintenance program is needed to make sure equipment that is broken or causing a safety hazard is fixed immediately.

• Tools need to be in good working order, properly repaired, and used for their intended purpose only. Any maintenance person will tell you that an accident can easily occur if tools are not used correctly. Tools that are used while broken are also very dangerous.

3. Environment. This area includes facility design, hazardous atmospheres, temperature, noise, factors that cause stress, etc. Are there areas in your workplace that are too hot, cold, dusty, dirty, messy, wet, etc. Is it too noisy, or are dangerous gases, vapors, liquids, fumes, etc., present? Do you see short people working at workstations designed for tall people? Such factors all contribute to an unsafe environment.

4. People. This area includes two main areas: (1) Unsafe employee behaviors such as taking short cuts, not using personal protective equipment, etc., and (2) Unsafe management behaviors, actions, activities such as ignoring safety rules, failing to train, or not writing adequate safety plans.

• Workers who take unsafe short cuts or who are using established procedures that are unsafe, are accidents waiting to happen.
• Managers may unintentionally promote unsafe behaviors by establishing programs, policies, plans, processes, and procedures that fail to prevent unsafe behaviors and/or hazardous conditions. These safety management system components may also be thought of as administrative controls and ultimately represent the "root causes" of 98% of all workplace accidents. These safety management system components may also be thought of as management controls, and ultimately represent the "root causes" of 98% of all workplace accidents.

Read this interesting story from Steve S., one of our past students, about the consequences of unsafe behaviors.

One important activity to ensure a safe work area is to conduct an effective walkaround safety inspection. If your organization relies solely on the safety committee to identify workplace hazards, it's possible the process may be ineffective. The job of maintaining a safe and healthful work area is a primary OSHA-mandated employer responsibility, so to be most effective, it makes sense that the safety inspection responsibility be delegated to the supervisor. Who, but the supervisor is better positioned to effectively identify and correct workplace hazards? Remember, as an agent of the employer, the basic responsibility to inspect the work area may rest with the supervisor. As you conduct the inspection, you should be looking at the hazards associated with the four MEEP categories discussed earlier (materials, equipment, environment, people). In some instances using an inspection checklist may be a good idea to make sure a systematic procedure is used. The only downside from using a checklist regards the "tunnel vision" syndrome: Hazards not addressed on the checklist may be overlooked.

• Most companies conduct safety inspections in compliance with OSHA rule requirements. But, is that good enough? Safety inspections may be effective, but only if those conducting the inspection are properly educated and trained in hazard identification and control concepts and principles specific to your company. In high hazard industries which see change on a daily basis, it takes more to keep the workplace safe from hazards.

• In world-class safety cultures, all employees conduct safety inspections of their work areas. They inspect their areas of responsibility as often as the hazards of the materials, equipment, tools, environment, and tasks demand. It's really a judgment call, but if safety is involved, it's better to inspect often.

• Employees should inspect the materials, equipment, and tools they use, and their immediate workstation for hazardous conditions at the start of each workday. They should inspect equipment such as forklifts, trucks, and other vehicles before using them at the start of each shift. Again, it's better to inspect closely and often. And give the process enough time. One of the major weaknesses in the inspection process is that we just don't spend enough time in particular areas to detect all hazards. Again, we do the "rolling eyeball" as we walk through an area.

Step One: Determine the work area to be inspected, and the type of work being accomplished.

Step Two: Talk with the safety director, workers' compensation insurer, or OSHA consultant to determine what safety rules apply to the work area. Obtain copies of the rules.

Step Three: Select the rules that you feel directly apply to your work area. Many rules may not have significant impact on the work area you are responsible for.

Step Four: Change each selected rule into a checklist question. Be sure to state the question as concisely as possible.

Step Five: Ask employees who work in the area for recommended checklist questions.

The result of following these procedures is to build a checklist that closely mirrors those hazards that OSHA will be inspecting. It might be a good idea to use an expert resource, such as those listed in Step Two, to evaluate the checklist you have developed.

Make everyone an inspector

As a supervisor, you probably don't want to be the only person inspecting for safety in your work area. You can, of course, delegate that responsibility to your workers. But how do you get them to willingly inspect for safety every day? Simple, (that's right...it doesn't have to be difficult) you set the example yourself by inspecting regularly, you insist that they inspect, and you recognize (thank) your workers for inspecting and reporting hazards.

Another effective activity to ensure a safe and healthful workplace is the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA). In the JHA process, you and your employee together analyze each step of a particular task and come up with ways to make it safer. The JHA goes far beyond the walkaround inspection in its ability to eliminate or reduce most causes for accidents in the workplace.

The problem. Unfortunately, the walkaround inspection is usually just an assessment. It merely attempts to determine if a hazard is present or not. It's conducted by one or two persons who walk around looking high and low to uncover hazardous conditions (I call this the "rolling eyeball syndrome"). If properly trained, they may effectively uncover hazards. If properly trained they may know how to effective question employees during the inspection (they ask questions other than "any safety complaints?"). I think the most serious weakness inherent in the safety inspection process is that very little time is devoted to analyzing any one particular work area.

1. Break the job task down into specific steps;
2. Analyze each step to uncover hazardous conditions and unsafe work practices;
3. Develop strategies to correct hazardous conditions and unsafe work practices; and
4. Develop safe work practices for each step when hazards and practices can't be eliminated.
5. Develop safe and efficient work procedures for the entire job.

The chief advantage is that adequate time is given to analysis of both hazardous conditions and unsafe work practices. Consequently, it may be possible to eliminate or reduce all of the causes for a potential accident. This advantage makes the JHA far more useful and beneficial in preventing accidents in the workplace. Although the occupational safety and health rules do not specifically require JHA's be accomplished on all hazardous tasks, we strongly recommend a formal JHA program conducted jointly by supervisors and employees. It makes very good business sense.

Research studies have determined that for every 600 incidents in the workplace, about 30 will result in minor injury, 10 in serious injury and one in death. The problem is: you don't know which of the 600 incidents will result in a serious injury or fatality.

If someone offered you a jar full of jelly beans, and told you that one of the jelly beans was laced with cyanide, would you eat one? I don't think so.

If you were told by your airline that one out of 600 flights crashed, would you fly with them? Probably not: yet in the workplace, we don't think about the odds of injury.

It's a proven fact that investigating incidents or near-misses is extremely effective for a number of reasons.

Accident investigation - Safety triage

Although accident investigations are considered primarily a "reactive" safety program because they are conducted only after an accident has occurred, they remain very important to your company's injury and illness prevention program. If the only purpose of the investigation is to place blame, they are totally reactive and ineffective. If, however, the purpose is to uncover the underlying system weaknesses that allowed the conditions and practices to exist, they may become a suitable proactive tool.

Read the following short scenario.

Trent, a new employee in the maintenance department, was told to remove a jammed conveyor belt. At the conveyor belt, he discovered a wad of plastic had become tangled in a belt. As soon as he removed the plastic, the conveyor started up. Unfortunately, Trent's hand got caught in an incoming nip point and was severely injured.

It might be relatively easy to determine what the surface causes for the accident in this scenario, but what might be the most likely root cause(s)? Root causes are the missing or inadequate programs, policies, plans, processes or procedures that produced the hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors described in the scenario above.

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