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Reducing Injuries

By Josh Williams, Ph.D. The way in which incident analyses are handled in organizations has a significant impact on organizational culture. In fact, effective incident analysis practices are significantly related to fewer incidents and injuries.1 In healthy organizations, incident analyses are used to get considerable field input into the factors associated with the incident and help leaders understand and analyze system factors contributing to incidents. This reinforces a learning environment to prevent similar incidents in the future and helps avoid typical “blame and train” perceptions following injuries. Leaders should follow these guidelines to create robust incident analysis processes:   Ensure system factors are

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Employees may believe reporting minor injuries is a waste of time or that small incidents are just “part of the job.” However, these minor injuries may have the potential for serious ones with other employees. Shining a light on these situations may help prevent serious injuries and fatalities in the future. Strong leaders encourage reporting minor injuries and close calls. To do this successfully, make the process as clear and simple for your specific organization. This includes simple instructions with reporting to supervisors, using apps, or even dropping off physical forms in deposit boxes. Regardless of your system,

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Consider this true-life story. “Bob” works for a soft drink bottling company and part of his job is making sure the production lines keep running. A very large, heavy labeler automatically cuts labels and affixes them to the bottles. However, the labeler gets glue caked up on it which makes cutting the labels impossible. One day, he attempts to remove the glue with a rag without first locking out the line. He mistimes it and loses a finger and a half. Finish this sentence: Bob is  _____________. And now for the rest of the story… There were a number of

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By Eric Michrowski The true implication for an organization that isn’t seeking every opportunity to learn is to accept to operate with a certain level of ignorance. Such comfort with organizational ignorance is one of the biggest barriers to success for businesses and is particularly dangerous when it comes to organizational safety. Companies need to, without compromise, learn from small events, near misses and injuries in order to systematically remove potential risks and reduce SIF potential. This is why leading organizations work to create an environment where workers are comfortable reporting close calls and incidents.  By focusing on using near misses and even

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By Eric Michrowski and Emily Wood We often communicate to employees through trainings, weekly email updates and with posters plastering the walls, that safety must always be our number one priority. But, when our words and actions during times of high pressure emphasize production and on-time performance, the message surrounding safety is lost. It must be acknowledged that production pressure, much like the stress of completing work on time within an office, is inevitable within any industry and cannot be eliminated. However, achieving a balance between production pressure and safety by establishing standard procedures that build a resilient workforce and capture

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By Emily Wood From the constant bombardment of emails, meeting reminders and text messages, to the external noises from equipment, chatty co-workers and phones ringing, workplace distractions are all around us. Studies have shown that 99% of people report their workdays are interrupted by at least one distraction1. Personally, I would reason that no one is able to escape a full day without a single distraction. Pausing one task and responding to an email or having a conversation with colleagues is often seen as multitasking, but multitasking prevents one from giving their full attention to something else, which is the definition

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