What would you consider to be the most foundational skillset in the industrial workplace? If you did not answer “safety,” there are safety leaders everywhere who would like a word with you. In fact, you may be part of the problem!
Safety leaders are tasked with making sure the industrial workplace is as safe as possible for workers. There’s no greater threat to industrial efficiency and productivity than workplace accidents that injure workers and cause costly delays and downtime.
As more and more advanced automation technologies enter the workplace, safety leaders constantly face new challenges to keep workers safe as they work alongside new machinery. But safety shouldn’t just be the concern of a few leaders. All employees need to make safety a top priority.
According to a recent EHS Today article by Dave Blanchard and Nicole Stempak, “EHS Today’s National Safety and Salary Survey 2023 invited respondents (all of them EHS professionals) to share comments regarding their job situation, the safety profession, and the biggest professional challenges that they face.” Here are some of the top challenges identified by the nation’s safety leaders:
- Finding qualified employees
- The transition from a human-based workforce to a technology-based workforce
- Safety buy-in from the younger workforce
- Senior leadership buy-in
- Mental well-being
- Too many rules and regulations
- Profit over safety
- Training and job knowledge
- Employee turnover
- Older supervisors are retiring faster than we can train replacements to take their place
- Employee complacency
- Doing too much too fast
- Finding employees with the proper skillsets
- Keeping the workforce actively engaged in their own safety
As you can see, safety leaders face a wide variety of challenges in the modern industrial workplace. What can be done to improve a workplace’s safety culture? How can leaders influence others to prioritize safety, leading to fewer accidents? One solution is to implement a quality safety program that teachers workers the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe in the workplace.
One of the most basic—and important—areas to focus on is the control of hazardous energy, often known by its more popular moniker “lock-out/tag-out or LOTO.” According to the United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), “[e]nergy sources including electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, thermal, or other sources in machines and equipment can be hazardous to workers. During the servicing and maintenance of machines and equipment, the unexpected startup or release of stored energy can result in serious injury or death to workers.”
“Workers servicing or maintaining machines or equipment may be seriously injured or killed if hazardous energy is not properly controlled…Injuries may include electrocution, burns, crushing, cutting, lacerating, amputating, or fracturing body parts… Craft workers, electricians, machine operators, and laborers are among the millions of workers who service equipment routinely and face the greatest risk of injury.”
Fortunately, “[p]roper lock-out/tag-out practices and procedures safeguard workers from hazardous energy releases.” Teaching workers hands-on LOTO skills will help them to understand how to properly control hazardous energy and maintain a safe work environment.
For companies looking to improve their safety training, a thorough review of current training materials is a great place to start. Do employees have access to hands-on training with actual components they’ll encounter on the job? If not, partnering with established companies to provide industrial-quality training systems that will stand the test of time will help ensure the continued safety of the workforce.
For example, DAC Worldwide offers a safety training system specifically designed to give employees the hands-on experience they need to master lock-out/tag-out skills. Be sure to check out DAC Worldwide’s Lock-Out/Tag-Out Training System and contact a DAC Worldwide representative to learn how you can improve your training today!
