Every safety professional in the construction industry is dedicated to improving safety and health, and part of that includes designing and delivering safety training. But not every safety professional has a basic grounding in some of the instructional design principles that make training more effective.

And that’s where this article comes in. We’ll introduce you to some ideas that will improve your safety training and link you to resources, including ASSP national standards and OSHA materials, that will help all the more.

We hope you find this helpful–let us know if you’ve got any questions.

And don’t forget to download the Construction Safety Training Guide we’ve got for you at the bottom of this article!

(more…)

Read More

Back  in 2016, OSHA published OSHA 3886, Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs in Construction. We encourage you to read the entire OSHA publication, and believe your construction safety management system or program will benefit from doing so, but in this article, we’re going to pass along some of the key points from the OSHA document on construction safety training management.

In particular, we’re going to call out OSHA’s tips for getting started with construction safety management programs (which we already turned into a construction safety management–getting started infographic for you–and OSHA’s tips for key elements to include in your safety management program–which, again, we’ve turned into an infographic for you as well.

Enjoy the read, let us know if you’ve got questions, and let us know if you would like to know about our safety training products–online safety and health courses, learning management systems, EHS management systems, mobile risk communication platforms, and more.

(more…)

Read More

Some organizations have been able to continue working during the COVID-19 pandemic “just” by having workers work from home. Sure, there were hiccups along the way as we all figured out online collaboration tools like Jira or Trello, messaging tools like Slack, and how to deal with Zoom fatigue, but for most organizations and workers, these COVID-related challenges were things we could handle (now, juggling that working from home while taking care of your kids and getting them to complete school from home at the same time is an issue for a different article).

But not all organizations could do that. For example, a lot of industrial or manufacturing organizations didn’t have that kind of luxury. The same was true in the construction industry. No doubt you can think of other organizations that had to deal with COVID return-to-work issues in a more immediate, “we need to be at work together” kind of way.

OSHA recently published a COVID/Return to Work guidance, and that guidance includes 16 different elements employers should include in their COVID Prevention Plans. In the article below, we’ve linked you to the OSHA guidance, listed the 16 elements, and shown you how digital tools created by Vector Solutions can help your company implement each of them.

We wish you luck with your own COVID return-to-work program and are here to help if you’ve got any questions.

(more…)

Read More

On March 12, 2021, OSHA announced a National Emphasis Program (NEP) titled National Emphasis Program – Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The purpose, as OSHA’s NEP explains, is “to ensure that employees in high hazard industries or work tasks are protected from the hazard of contracting SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the cause of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). ”

We’ll provide more details for you about this new OSHA/COVID National Emphasis Program below. Remember this comes pretty soon after the January 29, 2021 COVID guidance from OSHA.

Also keep min mind that we’ve created a 16-element COVID/Return to Work checklist for you based on the OSHA guidance and that our parent company Vector Solutions is offering complementary online COVID safety and health training courses for you to use.

(more…)

Read More

One way for companies to “return to work” and work in a safe, healthy, sustainable manner during the COVID pandemic is to have employees get vaccinated (of course, there are other ways, too–check out our article on creating a COVID prevention plan at work and get our 16-point COVID/Return-to-Work Checklist for more ideas).

Sounds easy, right? Well, not so much, really.

First, there are issues of logistics–how will employees get those shots? And then there will be times in which employees may not want to get the vaccination for any number of reasons.

The flat-out truth is that you may not reach the point at which 100% of the employees in your organization get immunized. But there are some things you can do to increase the percentage of employees who do and maybe even get them vaccinated sooner instead of later. We’ll share some ideas below.

(more…)

Read More

As the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on (though mercifully, it seems, with a light at the end of the tunnel), many companies are trying to sustain their return-to-work efforts or initiate them.

Back in January, OSHA released a guidance that’s a help to these companies, and we encourage you to check that out. We even created a COVID Return to Work Checklist based on the guidance that we think you’ll find helpful and that we encourage you to download.

Below, we’re going to list 10 easy things with a lot of “bang for the buck” that your organization can do to help make your return-to-work efforts safer and healthier for everyone at your organization as the pandemic continues. Please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below.
(more…)

Read More

Every year, OSHA releases a list of the 10 standards most for which OSHA field agents most commonly issue citations to employers for violations.

To be honest, the list is largely the same every year. In most years, the same 10 standards appear on the list. Sure, some years one or two new standards will make it, but it’s generally the same 10. And in most years, the order from 1-10 is pretty much the same, too. Again, sometimes specific standards move up and down a few slots, but there’s not a TON of movement and Fall Prevention & Protection is typically the most cited violation.

So in a normal year, this isn’t exactly the most dramatic show in town.

But of course in 2020, we had the COVID pandemic, so you may be wondering if that had any influence on the list. We’ll give you the full run-down below.

Before we do, though, since we’ve already mentioned COVID and OSHA and since there still IS a pandemic going on out there, please feel free to download our COVID-19/Return to Work checklist, which is based on OSHA’s January 29, 2021 COVID guidance.

Additionally, since this article is about OSHA compliance, violations, and citations, you may be interested in our Guide to OSHA General Industry Compliance and our Guide to OSHA Construction Compliance.

And with that set, let’s take a look at OSHA’s Top Ten Citations for fiscal year 2020.

(more…)

Read More

Many workplaces are trying to create safe, healthy work environments so workers can come to work and get work done while also not getting infected with COVID-19 or spreading COVID-19 to other coworkers.

In some cases, it’s a safety professional who’s playing a big role in the organization’s COVID mitigation strategies. And in those cases, even if the safety professional would be happy for additional guidance and suggestions, workers are no doubt in good hands. Job hazard analyses are being performed, risk assessments are being run, and hazard controls are being put into place using the hierarchy of controls.

In some other cases, an organization won’t have a dedicated safety professional on staff and these COVID mitigation prevention efforts may fall to someone in HR or someone with similar job responsibilities. It’s our belief that this article can be helpful to people in the first group (the safety professionals) and people in the second group (our friends in HR), but that in particular these people in HR-like roles who have COVID safety and health responsibilities thrust on them during a national emergency can use (and deserve) a helping hand.

So in this article, we’re going to introduce the idea of using the hierarchy of controls to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the workplace.

Before we get started, we wanted to direct your attention to three things:

• OSHA’s January 29, 2021 COVID/Workplace guidance, titled ‘Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace‘ (this article and the checklist immediately below are based on parts of this OSHA guidance)
• Our COVID-19/Return to Work Checklist, which you’re welcome to download now before you ready more (go ahead, we’ll wait)
• Our free COVID-19 Online Training Courses, developed by our parent company Vector Solutions as part of their Vector Cares offerings

With that, we’ll get started introducing you to how to use the safety concept of the hierarchy of controls to reduce the spread of COVID during your Return to Work efforts.

(more…)

Read More

Employers all over the world, and certainly here in the United States, are trying to find ways to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 infections at work so their companies can stay open and productive while their people stay safe and healthy.

In this article, we’re going to present 10 key safety considerations for reducing the risks of COVID-19 spreading at your workplace.

Before we begin, please know that we’ve got a COVID Return to Work Checklist for you and our parent company Vector Solutions has created free online COVID-19 Safety Training courses you’re welcome to use as well.

(more…)

Read More