{"id":1068,"date":"2014-03-28T18:19:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T18:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2014-04-08T16:39:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T16:39:13","slug":"identify-avoid-osha-recordable-instances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/osha\/identify-avoid-osha-recordable-instances\/","title":{"rendered":"Identify and Avoid OSHA Recordable Instances"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"avoid-osha-recordables\"<\/a>OSHA Recordable waiting to happen!<\/span><\/h2>\n

Identify and Avoid OSHA Recordable Instances<\/span><\/h1>\n

This article will help you identify OSHA Recordable instances and provide ideas for ways to prevent such instances.<\/p>\n

As defined in the OSHA recording keeping standard, 29 CFR 1904.7(a)<\/a>, for an incident to be an OSHA recordable injury, it must meet this basic requirement.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/i><\/b>Basic requirement<\/strong><\/em>.<\/i><\/b> You must consider an injury or illness to meet the general recording criteria, and therefore to be recordable, if it results in any of the following: death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness. You must also consider a case to meet the general recording criteria if it involves a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional, even if it does not result in death, days away from work, restricted work or job transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are often many questions as to what makes an injury an OSHA recordable.\u00a0 There are over 60 letters of interpretation that deal with questions in regards to the recordkeeping standard, click here to link to the OSHA Letters<\/a>.\u00a0 Some of these questions relate to administration of oxygen, preexisting injuries or illnesses, use of glue as a wound treatment and many others.<\/p>\n

Tracking injury statistics can be referred to as a \u201clagging indicator<\/strong>\u201d for a safety program.\u00a0\u00a0Lagging indicator\u00a0means once the injury happens, there is no way to prevent it.\u00a0 The data and statistics that are generated from recorded\u00a0injuries tell the story of where you have been, not where you are going.\u00a0 You could argue that by crunching the number of injuries, you can predict where or how the next injury will happen.\u00a0 But that is like driving your car by looking in the rear view mirror when you are driving forward.\u00a0 You can go forward, but not very effectively.<\/p>\n

Other lagging indicators include workers compensation costs, days restricted, lost work days, injury frequency and severity.\u00a0\u00a0While consulting with a client, the client was explaining\u00a0an incentive plan they had implemented\u00a0for management in terms of production rate.\u00a0 There were several plant managers involved and the contest duration was\u00a0for 3 months\u00a0(annual quarter).\u00a0 The winning department would hold the title of Best Performing Plant<\/strong>, setting a good example of production and giving the winning plant\u00a0bragging rights.\u00a0 After the quarter was completed, Plant A was named the winner.\u00a0 Plant A\u00a0performed better than\u00a0Plant B\u00a0and Plant C.\u00a0 However,\u00a0the Plants\u00a0were only being judged on production rate.\u00a0 There was no mention that Plant A had several recordable injuries during that same period.\u00a0\u00a0You be the judge, did Plant A really perform better?\u00a0 Instituting\u00a0contests is a fantastic motivator.\u00a0\u00a0Contests show the employees you\u00a0care and are interested,\u00a0however you must think big picture and ensure\u00a0contest rules cover\u00a0productivity and safety<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Instead of using lagging indicators, like injury rates, that tell you where you have been, focus on leading indicators<\/strong> that tell you where you are going.\u00a0\u00a0Leading indicators include:\u00a0 near miss reporting, housekeeping, employee discipline, pre-shift safety meetings and management evaluations.<\/p>\n

One area that is critical to any safety program is housekeeping.\u00a0 Housekeeping, not only in the sense of washing (washing surfaces\/counter tops, washing towels, etc), housekeeping is also the act of picking up debris, tools,\u00a0cords, wires, hoses as soon as possible or as soon as\u00a0you’re done using them.\u00a0 You can tell a lot by the appearance of the production floor.\u00a0\u00a0Factories and warehouses\u00a0with clean, neat, well maintained production floors have fewer\u00a0recorded injuries than the factories that are messy.\u00a0\u00a0A colleague mentioned, \u201cif you look at the quality\u00a0of cleanliness\u00a0in the bathrooms on the production floor, you have a good indicator of a companies’ commitment to housekeeping\u201d.\u00a0 I have used that observation many times and it proves to be accurate.<\/p>\n

There always seems to be a struggle of time, whether measured as production time, idle time, non-value-added time or other determination.\u00a0\u00a0Is there\u00a0a set time planned and \u00a0implemented for\u00a0housekeeping to take place near the end of each shift or activity?\u00a0 Do you have the expectation that housekeeping is ongoing as the shift progresses and completed at the end of a shift?\u00a0\u00a0Management knows the value of their employees and that\u00a0their people are\u00a0their greatest asset, yet their housekeeping is leading to numerous injuries.\u00a0 Employees will trip over hoses or electrical cords left on the floor.\u00a0 Material accumulates on the stairs or in emergency egress paths.\u00a0 To help in these instances…<\/p>\n

Be Visible\u00a0 Be Seen\u00a0 Be Engaged<\/h2>\n

Minimize the hazards associated with housekeeping.\u00a0 Management visibility and\u00a0commitment will send a strong message to employees that\u00a0management cares.\u00a0 Certainly\u00a0with housekeeping and all safety aspects, organizational rules, industry regulations, schedules, processes and so on must be in place.\u00a0\u00a0In addition to\u00a0regulations and\u00a0guidelines,\u00a0managers\u00a0need to be\u00a0on the floor talking with employees, engaging employees and most importantly, listening to employees.\u00a0\u00a0Being on scene gives managers\u00a0the opportunity to coach and counsel.\u00a0 If housekeeping is poor, it can be addressed at the source.\u00a0 As a 3rd party, we\u00a0interview management and employees in a non-confrontational manner and we find the majority of\u00a0employees are performing the way they think<\/span><\/em> their manager wants them to perform.\u00a0\u00a0Management has plenty to do, but if the only time management makes a trip to the production floor is when there is a problem you will want to revisit management priorities and processes.\u00a0 Include time for floor visits accordingly, maybe even daily.\u00a0 Manager presence in the production area will keep the problems to a minimum.<\/p>\n

By focusing on leading indicators,\u00a0you are taking a proactive stance to eliminate workplace injuries, which in turn will reduce or eliminate your OSHA recordable instances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OSHA Recordable waiting to happen! Identify and Avoid OSHA Recordable Instances This article will help you identify OSHA Recordable instances and provide ideas for ways to prevent such instances. As defined in the OSHA recording keeping standard, 29 CFR 1904.7(a), for an incident to be an OSHA recordable injury, it must meet this basic requirement. \u201cBasic requirement. You must consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[38,36,37],"class_list":["post-1068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-osha","category-safety-in-the-workplace","tag-identify-osha-recordable","tag-lagging-indicator","tag-leading-indicator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1108,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions\/1108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allrisktraining.com\/allrisktraining\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}