The Downstream Costs of a Work-Related Injury
The impact of a work-related injury is immediate. The injured employee’s work ceases as they are examined by a medical professional, worker’s compensation paperwork begins to be filled out and filed, and the employee is sent home to recover. This scenario and the...
The Differences Between Safety Management and Safety Culture
“Safety management” and “safety culture” as phrases are so close linguistically that they are likely used interchangeably by most. But these terms each serve specific purposes. Understanding where the nuances lie between what makes up safety management and what falls...
Blowing the Dust Off: 4 Tips to Update Your Safety Manuals
For most organizations, safety manuals exist as foundational documents. They provide detailed, necessary guidance for employees and supervisors trying to navigate their duties. Manuals need to stay relevant to continue playing a critical role for employees. Letting...
Don’t Get Cited for Not Reporting: OSHA’s Record-keeping Deadline on the Horizon
The deadline for most employers to submit their logs on injury and illness data to OSHA is fast approaching, so make sure your data is compiled, logged, and submitted on time. The Deadline to Submit As we have written about in...
Fatal Injuries on the Rise: It’s Time to Refocus Safety
Advancements in technology and automation continue to improve workflow and efficiency across industries, revolutionizing what work looks like for many organizations. As these dynamic systems are applied to new processes in businesses, it’s important that they do not...
Inside Safety Pro vs. Outside Safety Pro: Which is Better?
For an organization to make the most informed decisions regarding their safety program, a fully comprehensive view of the situation — the data, the safety culture, and how the organization operates — is required. To some organizations, this means turning to a trusted,...
You Need to Be Safer But Don’t Know Where to Start
When the latest safety numbers come in and an uptick in on-site injuries is noticed, naturally, the alarm bells start ringing. Not only are injuries costly, but continued employee safety and morale are the backbone of quality, efficient work. However, getting to the...
You CAN Continue Safety Training During a Pandemic
The world continues to be upended as we work together dealing with the waves of change from the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting how we work, how we plan, and how we fundamentally operate day in and day out. More than ever, safety has become a major point of focus for...
Identify Gaps in Your Safety Game
Closing out the fourth quarter, now is the time to take a macro look at the data compiled over the last year and use the findings to build out a roadmap for the new year. Naturally, this leads many organizations to turn a more critical eye toward safety and finding...
Follow-up Is Critical to Make Training Stick
Training sessions and workshops are spaces dedicated to learning, without distraction. When employees take safety training courses, they’re able to focus solely on the material at hand, fully engaging with the topics, and immediately showing what they’ve learned...
Start 2021 with a New Commitment to Safety
With the new year fast approaching, the time to start drafting resolutions is here. While there are innumerable little changes that can help here or there in daily life, the best resolutions are ones that create a lasting impact for the greater good, such as...
Holiday Decorating Tips: Putting Them Up and Taking Them Down
Becoming caught up in the magic and wonder of holiday decorating is a fundamental part of the season. Arranging all the twinkling and sparkling décor is a fun way for families to show off their traditions and personality, bringing those we care about closer together....
Common OSHA Violations for the Precast Industry
Vigilance in on-the-job safety is a must. While some safety practices become routine, skipping these practices is what leads to injuries and incidents, which break up the routine, but for all of the worst reasons. In a continual effort to curb increasing injuries, and...
The Important Role Employee Engagement Plays in Safety Success
Charting safety performance is an important step toward achieving safety goals and relies upon gathering and parsing the right set of metrics. Each organization has access to a multitude of data — such as the number of incidents in a given timeframe or the change in...
Why Safety Starts at the Top
Safety within an organization is non-negotiable — it’s a must have piece. A fundamental right, an ethical imperative, and a financial concern. Safety is a foundational pillar for organizations, but safety is about much more than mitigating risk. A successful safety...
How to Get Your Employees to Take Safety Meetings Seriously
Safety meetings are vital for keeping your employees safe, providing pertinent details on safety goals, safety improvements, and new working standards. Unfortunately, there are times when employees do not take these safety meetings seriously. When employees are...
Develop Safety Leaders in Your Organization with Interactive Online Safety Workshops
Classrooms, conferences, and seminars across the country keep working to find ways to adapt to the new normal. Perhaps the greatest shift has been the way these educational gatherings have moved from meeting in person to hosting online sessions. With the CDC...
4 Ways to Continue Improving COVID-19 Safety
With the threat of the coronavirus (COVID-19) proving to be a continually pervasive aspect in our day-to-day lives, organizations will need to continue implementing safety precautions to best protect themselves and their employees...
The Deadline is Fast Approaching: Complete Your Company Sexual Harassment Training Before the Year End
Every type of employee safety training is important, but a new law passed in August, 2019means employers in Illinois will need to pay special attention to sexual harassment training fortheir employees. Taking direction from the other states with mandates requiring...
What is a Culture of Safe Production™?
Goals need to be fulfilled, KPIs need to be maintained, and projected targets need to be delivered upon. In so many words, the pressure is on. Within a production environment, this is the everyday reality—a continuous cycle of needs to be met. The hectic nature of...
Supervisors are Your Organization’s MVE: Most Valued Employees
Front-line supervisors are a versatile resource for organizations. As the closest level of management on the ground with employees, front-line supervisors play key roles in observing, reporting, and championing safety information, in addition to their other managerial...
Is Budgeting for Injuries a Smart Move?
There are many practical and sensible areas where establishing a budget would be an ideal allocation of resources. For instance, organizations will look at the realms of marketing, client outreach, or research and development, and find that establishing a budget for...
Safety Leadership Training — is it Worth the Investment?
Perhaps the most popular metric to employ across performance indicators is ROI — return on investment — used to show, in the simplest of terms, where the money is coming back in, and in what amount. When it is usually employed, ROI is a hard, number-to-number...
What Is Safety Leadership
As a term, it is almost deceptively simple, but safety leadership as a concept is greater than the sum of its parts. At the core, the idea of safety leadership is straightforward enough — a reliable collective of motivated individuals who continuously promote and...
Guidelines for Developing Safety Leaders
It is widely understood that creating a culture of safety in the workplace requires providing employees with the proper training, tools, equipment, and resources. However, access alone is only the first step — to truly engage employees in committing to day-to-day safe...
5 Keys to Building High Performing Safety Teams
No matter the size or type of organization, everyone wants high performing teams. High performing teams not only meet productivity and performance goals but go above and beyond to ensure the long-term success of the organization. However, the big question is: how do...
Selecting an OSHA Response Team
Perhaps the most important step in preparing for an OSHA inspection is selecting the response team. Creating a team of both internal and external partners who can respond when an OSHA inspector arrives at the facility will help your entire organization prepare for...
Leading Safety Through a Pandemic
It’s no secret we’re navigating a challenging time this year – both personally and in our organizations. The outbreak of a global pandemic has forced us to walk into unprecedented circumstances. As an employer, you are likely overwhelmed by the uncertainty and...
The Coronavirus and Your Workplace | Precautions to Take
Amidst news of the coronavirus (COVID-19), employers across the globe are taking precautions to protect their workforce from the potential impacts of this disease. Since the media seems to have varying opinions about the virus, our team at Optimum wants to encourage...
OSHA Releases NEP on Respirable Crystalline Silica
On February 4, 2020 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released an updated National Emphasis Program (NEP) focused on silica exposure. Since the updated respirable crystalline silica standard became effective in June of 2016, OSHA has continued...
OSHA’s NEP on Amputations in Manufacturing – And How it Will Affect Your Facility
In December of 2019, OSHA issued an updated National Emphasis Program (NEP) focused on amputation hazards in manufacturing industries. The intent of this NEP is to reduce or eliminate amputations across the manufacturing sector through increased enforcement of OSHA...
The Real Cost of a Workplace Injury
We all know injuries can be expensive, but how many people know exactly how much an injury costs? Finding the real cost of a workplace injury not only shows the financial implications but forces us to think about the auxiliary effects of an incident. When a worker...
What You Need to Know About Cal/OSHA’s New Incident Reporting Requirements
In 2019 The Division of Occupational Safety and Health in California – better known as Cal/OSHA – updated the incident reporting requirements for severe injury. These changes have caused many California employers to update their procedures for navigating a workplace...
Should You Reward Your Employees for Following Safety Guidelines at Work?
Deciding whether to incentivize safety in the workplace can be tough, especially if you’ve been struggling with employee injuries and accidents. However, the Environment, Health, and Safety organization, or EHS, has some handy tips that can help you decide on the best...
Ongoing Risk Assessments Are the Only Way to Ensure the Longevity of Your Safety Culture
Risk assessments are foundational processes found in every successful safety culture. They identify hazards, provide safe solutions, and improve productivity organization-wide. Unfortunately, safety cultures are not mechanized - they require a healthy amount of...
Safety Management Programs Should Be Audited Yearly
Safety audits are designed to collect key information regarding the effectiveness of a company’s safety management programs. These audits are crucial to ensuring compliance with safety legislation - like OSHA regulations, for example. However, these audits serve far...
Continuous Improvement Is Crucial for Safety Program Success
Work is demanding. In the high-risk industries we specialize in, that work can demand more than just an employee’s effort - it can oftentimes demand their bodies, as well. Back pain, collision injuries, falls, lung poisoning, chemical exposures, burns, bruises, and...
Training Employees Is Crucial When Implementing an Employee Safety Program
Let’s imagine you were given an unknown, brand-new tool to construct a wooden wall with. Without instructions, you could try to figure out how to use this new tool through a process of trial-and-error. You might even determine the correct way to use the tool...
How to Create a Successful Employee Safety Program
Creating a successful employee safety program within your own organization is a daunting task. You need to create a real program that actually keeps your employees safe... while simultaneously maintaining a tight budget. Which, oftentimes feels like an impossibility,...
How to Get Employees Excited About Company Safety Programs
Safety programs are crucial for your employee’s development company-wide; a strong safety program keeps your employees safe, fosters leadership skills, and dramatically improves infrastructural procedures and workflows. There’s just one problem… most safety programs...
Expert Tips on How to Promote a Safety Culture Your Employees Will Stand Behind
A successful safety culture can save you millions - a culture of safety-minded employees will be actively participating in the creation, implementation, and monitoring of safety procedures in the workplace. However, that looks much tidier on paper than it is to...
Reasons for an OSHA Inspection
There are four typical reasons an OSHA Inspector would come to your facility: OSHA inspections should always be on your radar, especially if you are operating in a high-risk industry. The frequency of OSHA inspections is consistently high - with over 73,000 State and...
How to Implement a Timely Safety Culture Program for Any Business
How to Implement a Timely Safety Culture Program for Any Business We have extensive material covering safety culture and safety programs within various different organizations - but what if you need to implement a safety culture within your business today? Here’s the...
5 Ways to Get Leadership on Board with Safety Culture in a Company
Creating and maintaining a strong safety culture throughout a company is imperative - and doubly so in an industry that puts its workers at higher risk for injury on a daily basis. However, the detracting caveat to creating such a culture is the need for the entire...
Are Your Supervisors Worth Investing In? Does Annual Investment Match Expectations?
Supervisors are intentionally brought into an organization for metrics, and employees. For the former, a supervisor is given the vast responsibility of tracking, enforcing, and improving employee performance metrics or safety standards. For the latter, a supervisor is...
Why Risk Management for Construction Companies Is Crucial for Growth
Why Risk Management for Construction Companies Is Crucial for Growth In construction, risk management cannot go ignored. In the words of Sir Michael Latham, “No construction project is risk-free. Risk can be managed, minimized, shared, transferred, or accepted - It...
Metal Fabrication Safety – How to Keep the Shop Safe
Workers in the metal fabrication industry are often exposed to high-risk activities, such as welding ferrous materials. A single day on the job in a metal fabrication facility will quickly and visibly show you the frequency in which dangerous tasks are carried out in...
Business Leaders Agree Safety Is Important – Then Why Is Industry Average Acceptable?
Business Leaders Agree Safety Is Important – Then Why Is Industry Average Acceptable? Many, if not all, business leaders can strongly affirm safety is important in their organization. However, only 33% of senior safety leaders believed they had the safety culture...
Precast Plant Safety Assessment – Why It’s Important
Precast Plant Safety Assessment - Why It’s Important Precast plants deal with a unique set of risks. Specifically, precast concrete is highly caustic, making it a dangerous material for workers to use at the risk of skin burns and falling or crushing damage. ...
Why Workplace Safety Programs Are Important
Why Workplace Safety Programs Are Important Workplace safety programs seem to be considered more of a nuisance than an opportunity for most organizations. We’ve found that this is mostly due to a misunderstanding of why these programs are so important to an...