Signs of fatigue can be seen in every workplace. Regardless of industry, we’ve all been in a situation where we’ve had to sit in a room full of people and fight the urge to fall asleep right then and there (and maybe some of us were unsuccessful). Or if you’ve been well-rested in those situations,…
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Don’t Let This Podcast Distract You—No Matter Where You Are
SafeStart’s Danny Smith wears many hats under the SafeStart umbrella. His official title is Senior Safety Consultant—but he’s so much more than that. He’s a thought leader and subject matter expert within SafeStart and a consultant asked for by name when clients need help with their implementations. He also had a big hand in planning/running…
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How These Off-the-Job Safety Topics Will Make April Safer
With a heavy focus on distracted driving awareness month, workplace violence awareness month, worker’s memorial day, and world health day in April, off-the-job safety topics can get a little overshadowed this month. But since the things that happen to us off the job can impact our actions on the job, communication about them is vitally…
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3 Ways to Use Digital Displays to Boost Your Company Morale
When it comes to improving employee morale, everyone has a role to play. Management may feel that the employees are responsible for their own happiness, but the “best places to work” lists will show you a number of companies that put an effort into making sure that their employees enjoy their work. As anyone satisfied…
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Off-the-Job Safety Topics That Are Fundamental for February
Compare workplace injury rates with any injury or fatality statistic outside of work and it’s obvious why a safety professional would see the value in 24/7 safety. But it can be hard to justify to senior management why off-the-job safety needs on-the-job time for discussion. With that said, the connection is clear: what happens off…
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Three Surprising Workplace Safety Lessons About Roadway Deaths
Trends in car design have led to the rapid development of new safety features. A quick look at new cars today compared to those of only a decade or two ago, and it’s easy to come to the conclusion that drivers are safer than ever before. And so many were surprised when roadway deaths in…
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The 12 Toolbox Talks of Holiday Safety
The holidays are a busy time for everyone. There’s something to be said about the right decorations to set the tone for the season. But unfortunately for some, the holidays are also a time when injuries and fatalities increase—and it could be because people are so focused on the season that they fail to see…
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Use SafeStart Teachings for a Safe Halloween
At Halloween, children can have a hard time staying focused on anything but racing to the next house for candy. This year, why not try a little SafeStart talk to get them thinking about safety? A quick reminder of these common Halloween human factors and other safety tips can help keep them safe as they…
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How to Embed Human Factors Management Principles Into Your HazCom Safety Plan
Having a safety system doesn’t mean that people will follow it. It’s a general truism, but also one that can have very specific, and deadly, consequences. To see it in action, one needs to look no further than hazard communication. In his latest article for Occupational Health and Safety Magazine, safety author Ray Prest takes…
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How to Manage Shift Worker Fatigue Without Coming Off Shift
The biggest complaints about shift work can almost always be traced back to disrupted sleep patterns. While it can be nice to have extra days off due to working longer shifts (and the pay is often better to work those shifts), the pros don’t always outweigh the cons. In addition to issues with fatigue, shift…
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3 Ways to Include Human Factors in Toolbox Talks
Toolbox talks are a common method of raising safety awareness. Typically, they involve having short talks with small groups of workers about a hazard, EHS regulation or another safety issue that’s likely to be at play that day. But there’s one topic that’s frequently overlooked in toolbox talks: human factors. It makes just as much…
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6 Distraction Phenomena That Could Be Affecting You Right Now
The following information is an excerpt from our free webinar Focus on Distraction to Improve Safety Outcomes. Other than distracted driving, or to a lesser degree distracted walking, we have almost become so accepting of distraction that we no longer realize it’s a problem or have misdirected the problem to an activity or object like…
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3 Invigorating Ways to Overcome Fatigue at Work
It’s no secret that drinking alcohol impairs your physical and mental abilities. Drinking makes it more dangerous to drive a car, slows physical reaction times, and diminishes our ability to identify and respond to hazards. Less well understood is the fact that fatigue can have a similar effect on the human body. In fact, according…
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Common Patterns That Will Lead To Successful Safety Practices
This is an excerpt from our free patterns guide. It reviews several patterns that you can recreate to improve the results of your current EHS program. Acknowledge the human element Safety programs that are designed to pass audits are typically more focused on the bottom line than workers’ safety. The most common issue we notice…
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14 Useful Forklift Topics You Should Consider for Your Toolbox Talks
Toolbox talks are an essential component of a comprehensive forklift safety training program. But many supervisors and safety managers quickly run out of topics to talk about, especially if they’re holding safety meetings on a regular basis. To that end, here are 14 wide-ranging topics to consider discussing. Most run-of-the-mill toolbox talks will cover the…
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3 Ways to Improve Road Construction Safety
A roadway worksite is a high-risk workplace that requires careful, detail-oriented preparation and clear and consistent training and messaging to all workers on site to guard against incidents. The presence of cars traveling at high speeds through the worksite, combined with working alongside large construction, can present a grave risk to workers on the ground.…
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12 Months of Toolbox Talk Topics
Toolbox talks originated as a way to encourage workers to have regular safety meetings—and since they congregated around a toolbox every morning, it became a fitting name for these meetings (another variation is a tailgate meeting, because, you guessed it, they happen when workers gather around the back of a pickup truck). Toolbox talks not…
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4 Summer Safety Toolbox Topics for June
June is the month when we celebrate Father’s Day, Flag Day, and summer solstice to mark the beginning of summer. The topic of summer safety provides multiple options for toolbox talks in the month of June. For starters, check out our Summer Safety page for a host of resources to pull from. But when it…
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6 Speaking Topics That Make Toolbox Talks Easy in May
May is a month that brings a lot to celebrate and weather that is typically more enjoyable. You’ll note that May is host to Mother’s Day, Armed Forces Day, and Memorial Day on the calendar. And when it comes to finding May-specific toolbox topics, there are a lot of things that aren’t on your typical…
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4 Simple Strategies to Improve Forklift Safety
Forklifts protect workers from the back-breaking work of lifting and moving extremely heavy objects, but they are also a hazard themselves and can result in serious workplace incidents. Weighing up to 9,000 pounds and capable of reaching speeds of up to 18 mph, forklifts should be operated with care and respected for the dangers they…
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6 Spring Safety Toolbox Topics for April
April is a time that most people associate with spring—and spring cleaning. Spring cleaning isn’t just limited to your home—whether you work in an office or on a construction site, cleaning and organization are vital to maintaining production. In addition to higher productivity, a clean workplace can also reduce injuries, lower absenteeism and promote better…
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5 Toolbox Topics Meant for March
March is the time we start to think about spring. Either the weather is getting nicer, keeping us focused on even nicer days ahead, or the weather is still like winter and has us wishing for spring to hurry up and arrive. No matter the weather, with your mind elsewhere it can be hard to…
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Optimizing the Onboarding Process to Emphasize Workplace Safety
This is a guest post by Jori Hamilton. Every day, millions of Americans go to work, fully expecting that they will return home at the end of the day in one piece. Recent studies show that 85% of Americans view safety as their number one job priority. Every business should have the same expectations as…
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6 Resources to Focus on to Fight Distraction
When people think about the dangers of distraction, the first thing that tends to come to mind is distracted driving. And although distraction is involved in a huge number of fatalities on the road, it’s not a problem that only occurs when someone’s behind the wheel. Distraction is a universal problem that makes workers more…
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5 November Toolbox Topic Ideas
There are a number of things in November to focus on for toolbox talk topics to help keep your employees safe. We often look to the calendar for inspiration but November doesn’t offer a lot of topics for safety talks from the national days alone. But the holiday calendar does remind us that Thanksgiving is…
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Forklift vs. Pedestrian: How To Maintain Safety
Warehouses and loading docks are not highways, so avoiding motorized incidents seems like it should be easier than preventing car crashes. And yet, forklift incidents are common and serious, especially when they involve pedestrians—people don’t have to be hit at 80mph to sustain serious injuries, particularly when a forklift is involved. The main causes for…
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6 Toolbox Topic Ideas Perfect for October
When you think of October, the fall weather, the changing colors of the leaves, and Halloween come to mind. But on the topic of safety, October holds a number of recognized national safety calendar events and they are a perfect basis for toolbox talk topics. Here are six great topics specifically for October. National Protect…
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How Aware Are You When It Comes to Safety?
Awareness is such a basic concept that many people don’t consider its daily impact—they assume that they’re always “aware”. However, awareness is not synonymous with self-awareness and is not “switched on” at all times. This becomes particularly obvious during repetitive actions or when performing tasks we have a lot of experience with. Driving past a…
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4 Signs You’re Under the Influence of Complacency
Complacency can lull people into a false sense of security and cause them to downplay any risks that surround them. The more comfortable they get doing something (and nothing bad happens) the less they think about the associated hazards. And the longer they go without an incident, the more confident they become that nothing bad…
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Chris Ross Has the Answers for Supervisors, Safety and the Human Factors in Between
Chris Ross recently conducted a fascinating webinar called Safety and the Supervisor: Developing Frontline Leadership Skills to Improve Safety Outcomes. In the Q&A at the end of the presentation, Chris was asked a number of questions. We’ve consolidated some of the most common questions and Chris’s responses below. His answers are well worth reading for…