EHS on Tap

New technologies are changing the workforce worldwide, and the environment, health, and safety field isn’t immune to the constantly changing landscape. New devices, software, and processes are revolutionizing EHS and forcing professionals to adapt their skill sets accordingly. And it isn’t going to stop—in fact, our guest, Dave Johnson, chief editor of Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, says that the EHS profession is in for disruptions on a scale not seen since the establishment of OSHA, perhaps even greater.

Today we’re focusing on the health part of EHS—mental health, to be specific. The mental health of employees at your organization is an important factor affecting everything from the company’s efficiency to the likelihood of a violent incident. Unfortunately, it’s also a factor that is all too easily overlooked. Employee assistance programs, or EAPs for short, are a great tool for creating a happier, safer, and more productive workplace for employees—but there can be many challenges to implementing them. Here to talk about EAPs and how they can boost your safety and violence prevention efforts is Raquelle Solon, Business Solutions Engineer at FEI Behavioral Health and a speaker at BLR’s upcoming Workplace Violence Prevention Symposium (live.blr.com/event/workplace-violence-prevention-symposium)

In episode 26 of EHS on Tap, we dive into a topic that can sometimes be a bit intimidating for EHS professionals—implementing EHS software at their organizations. Businesses worldwide are making the transition from paper to pixels, and it seems like new software solutions are popping up every day offering new ways to manage EHS. As any safety pro knows, it can be difficult to get management to buy into initiatives, especially new and unproven ones … and even if you can get the buy-in, you still have to figure out the right direction to take when considering software. Joining us to share her thoughts on how you can establish management buy-in and keep your EHS software project on track is Pamala Bobbitt, Director of Product Marketing and Channels at Cority.

For our 25th episode, sponsored by SafeStart, we’re taking a look at the top 3 safety challenges revealed by SafeStart’s First Annual Safety Progress Report released earlier this year. This report was based on our annual survey of EHS pros just like you, so some of these challenges will probably sound familiar! Here with us today to lend his expert advice on these safety challenges is Tim Page-Bottorff, Senior Safety Consultant for SafeStart and an influential and inspirational speaker with over 20 years of experience in occupational health, safety, and environmental management.

Active shooter and other workplace violence incidents vary by environment, motive and perpetrators, but there are common threads that can be used to create a solid safety program and employee training. Although it can be difficult to engage employees in such training, it is essential to empower the workforce to prevent and respond to critical incidents. In this episode of EHS on Tap, we discuss how to create and launch successful critical incident training with Jay Hart, Director of Force Training Institute. In his role, Jay leads a team of first responders, anti-terrorism, cybersecurity, defensive tactics, and crisis management specialists, and works with a variety of companies on creating and implementing active shooter mitigation programs and emergency management response plans. Want more in-depth training on active shooter protocol? Save the date for the 2018 Workplace Violence Prevention Symposium, March 8-9 in Savannah, Georgia. Learn more or register at http://store.blr.com/workplace-violence-symposium.

Summer is around the corner, and with increased temperatures come increased risk of heat stress incidents in the workplace. Workers who are exposed to extreme heat or work in hot environments indoors or outdoors, or even those engaged in strenuous physical activities, may be at risk for heat stress. And heat stress can cause all sorts of illnesses - heat stroke, heat exhaustion, or even death. Employers want to ensure that their workers are safe, and at the same time want to maintain productivity. What are an employer's responsibilities and what are their options (including some innovative solutions and products) for protecting workers who may be at risk? On today’s episode of EHS on Tap, we discuss heat stress challenges with Abby Ferri, CEO and Chief Consultant of The Ferri Group.

OSHA’s lockout/tagout rule aims at protecting workers from hazardous energy in the workplace. Dave Galt, BLR’s Senior Legal Editor for Safety and resident lockout/tagout expert joins us to address issues such as: Does OSHA’s standard reflect current technology? What are some of the alternative methods that can be used that offer the same protections as lockout-tagout? And, under the Trump administration, can we expect any changes to OSHA’s lockout/tagout rules or their enforcement?

Environmental managers are always thinking about how their companies or facilities are complying with federal, state, and local regulations. Many use environmental audits as tools to help assess compliance liabilities and provide a basis for minimizing those liabilities by bringing to light areas of noncompliance. This leads to implementation of corrective measures before federal or state inspectors and investigators visit a facility. However, conducting a comprehensive environmental audit can be a daunting task. On today’s episode of EHS on Tap, Doug Ruhlin, environmental and sustainability consultant and owner of Resource Management Associates joins us to talk about how to keep environmental audits manageable so that they can be an efficient, useful tool.

“Safety culture” is top priority for every safety manager these days, but how to shape a culture is a continual challenge. Most of the time, the focus is on the attitudes of managers and supervisors that work directly with workers and improving employee engagement, but a successful safety culture also requires the most senior leaders of an organization to provide effective safety leadership. But what does that leadership look like and what are the obstacles to achieving success? On today’s EHS on Tap, we discuss senior management’s role in creating a solid safety culture with Adam Levesque, a safety management consultant at MEMIC, a Workers Compensation Specialty Insurer. You can join Adam at BLR's Safety Culture 2017, being held this September in Austin, Texas for his presentation "Team-Based Accountability’s Connection to Leading Indicators: Using Effective Metrics to Drive Employee Participation and Accident Prevention." Safety Culture 2017 (safetyculture.blr.com) is the nation's most targeted event on safety culture improvement to increase engagement, strengthen compliance, and create more alignment between staff and safety initiatives.

All employers required to keep injury and illness records are impacted by the improved tracking of the workplace injuries and illnesses rule, and more than 460,000 employers will need to electronically submit records for public scrutiny under OSHA’s recent rulemaking. Many believe the antiretaliation provision of the rule will be eliminated as soon as OSHA leadership moves in. But what about the electronic submission of records and posting the data? This is a massive undertaking in an already underfunded and understaffed Agency. On today’s EHS on Tap, we will be discussing the future of OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements with Tressi Cordaro. Tressi is a partner in the Washington, D.C. region office of Jackson Lewis PC., where she advises and represents employers on occupational safety and health matters before federal and state OSHA enforcement agencies. Tressi will also be presenting at this year’s BLR Safety Summit in early April in Austin, Texas.