Understanding Safety: Safety Statements
The term safety statement is used to describe a document which summarises how an Irish company manages risk and provides an opportunity for company management to show commitment to their employees that workplace risk is effectively managed.
Personal Protective Equipment
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is one of the most useful, but also the most misunderstood risk control measures available in the workplace. The correct PPE can provide very robust barriers to hazards but it must be used in the right context which unfortunately is not always the case in the workplace.
Tailoring Safety Training for your Staff & Contractors
If there is one thing that you cannot get away with, in regard to health and safety, it is training. Number one, it’s the law! and number two you are not going to get very far on improving or maintaining safety in your company if your employees and contractors do not know what is expected of them!
Health and Safety – Costly or Beneficial?
Well, this is an interesting topic for discussion! If you ask a small business owner or someone in management, they will probably say that health and safety is costly, takes up time and can be a barrier. Ask a health and safety professional and you will get the opposite answer!
Lifting Operations
This discussion looks at the safety issues that are related to lifting operations, including equipment and accessories and what general arrangements need to be in place to safely manage this type of hazardous work.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of your Safety Training
Safety training is a critical part of your overall safety program. It is an investment and like any investment, you want to know how it performs, what you can do to improve it and if it needs changes. That is why it is so important to evaluate how effective your safety training is.
Developing a Health and Safety Training Plan
If you are starting from scratch with your Health and Safety Training plan, have patience! I have been where you are sitting now, and I know how overwhelming and frustrating it can be. Trust me, your hard work will pay off, once you get the groundwork done.
The Benefits of Health and Safety Induction Training
Everyone that visits your site should have some kind of formal induction. Each induction will need to cover different topics, for example, Visitors won’t need to know how to fill out a permit to work form, but they will need to know where their assembly point is, in the event of an emergency.
Promoting a Culture of Safety
Safety Culture is probably one of the most important aspects of safety management, and probably the most difficult to implement. Whether you are a safety professional, supervisor, manager or an employee of a company, you need to consider the importance of creating a strong safety culture within your Organisation.
VDU Assessment – Are you sitting comfortably?
One of my favourite parts of my job, as a health and safety consultant, is carrying out VDU assessments for people. Why? Because a difference can be made almost immediately! Such simple changes can help people sit more comfortably, ease any pain they are experiencing and create a better working environment.
Safety is a continuing Journey, not a final destination
For most of us who work in the health and safety area, we know this only too well. The process of creating a safe and healthy workplace for everyone can take a long time. Once you have started this process, it becomes a journey and not a final destination. Nothing is static, nothing stays the same, and safety management is no different.
Human Error: What it is and how to mitigate against it
It is clear than in terms of accident investigations especially those for major events, these major accidents are never what might be called ‘blue sky’ events. It may seem like that to the people impacted by them but invariably the investigation report will uncover and identify weaknesses and stress in the system that went either unreported or if reported, uncorrected.