Question: I’m an EHS professional and I work for a manufacturing company that operates in areas of the country where we sometimes get inclement weather that affects our operation. Every time we get bad weather, I’m asked to help decide whether we should cease operations or not, and every time it feels like I’m making the wrong decision. No matter what decision is made, we’re either going to upset Sales and Customer Service (who don’t work on-site) or we’re going to upset the workforce.

Is there a way to make this decision that doesn’t cause conflict and if so, how do you do it?

One of the first steps in securing the safety of a workplace is being aware of all of the hazards and risks that exist. However, some workplace hazards are easy to overlook and forget about. Just because something is a minor risk or isn’t perceived as a risk doesn’t mean that it can’t cause harm to employees. To make sure your business doesn’t miss something, we wanted to go over some of the most overlooked workplace hazards.

Happy World Day for Safety and Health at Work. April 28^th is the day that, globally, promotes the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases in the workplace. As a key business priority, environmental, health, and safety (EHS) compliance, prevention, and reporting need a proactive (not just reactive) approach to management and solutions.

Question: Our company decided to put together a Safety Committee and we really want people to volunteer to be on it but it’s been a week since we posted a notice asking for volunteers and so far the only names on the list are salaried managers and supervisors—but no hourly workers. We really don’t want to start picking hourly works to join or make it mandatory but if we don’t get a few hourly names soon, we’ll have to do that.

How do we get hourly workers interested in joining our new Safety Committee?

When it comes to the world of lean management styles, there are several things to keep in mind. This particular management approach, which began in the Japanese automaking industry, has proven highly effective when its principles are applied properly. One of the most important of these principles is the practice of going on “Gemba walks” on a regular basis.

It’s estimated that of the 7.91 billion people in the world, 4.95 billion are active internet users and 93.4% of those internet users (or around 4.62 billion) use the internet to gain access to social media platforms. And, as with anything else, when large groups of people are participating in an activity, there will always be people interested in doing nefarious things—like doxing people to gain access to their personal information for whatever reason.

For any business, it’s critical for employees to share whenever there is an accident or a close call. Of course, there is a science to incident reporting that should be followed closely. If employers and their workers take the right steps when reporting safety accidents, they can be addressed the right way and it’ll be easier to prevent similar accidents in the future.

In this day and age, we have access to more information in the palms of our hands than at any other time in history. While that’s usually a great thing, it can also sometimes become a problem when the information we’re receiving and then sharing isn’t complete, is missing context, or is simply misinterpreted.

With EHS Insight users have the ability to scan QR codes in order to quickly identify an item. In order to take full advantage of this feature, you will need to ensure that your QR codes have been properly created and displayed on an item.

If there’s one philosophy that every company should preach about workplace health and safety it’s that it is truly a team effort. Businesses may set the rules and assume all legal responsibility, but it’s employees who have to follow procedures and keep everyone safe while working on the front lines.