Too busy for safety? I don't think so.

I�ve recently binge-watched BBC's "Sherlock" and got to thinking about body language and how to improve my observational skills. More specifically, I wanted to evaluate my body language when someone comes into my office or approaches me after a meeting � usually to ask for help with a safety issue.

Does my body language communicate how I feel? Do people feel they can approach me with safety concerns without fear of reprimand or dismissal? Or do they feel I�m too busy/stressed for their particular question?

I set up a task list of things to work into my repertoire when engaging with coworkers and upper management about safety, adapted in part from WikiHow:

• Smile
• Open Up
• Use Your Eyes
  

Smile

Why smile? An article in Forbes on �The Untapped Power of Smiling� discusses a few benefits of a smile in defusing tense situations and connecting with others.

• A smile has the same meaning in many different societies.
• It is hard to frown and stay unhappy or stressed when interacting with someone who smiles.
• The physical act of smiling can make us feel better.
• A number of studies have been completed on the health benefits of smiling. Smiling is associated with: reduced stress hormone levels (cortisol, adrenaline, and dopamine), increased overall health, increased mood-improving hormone levels (endorphins), and lower blood pressure, to name a few.
• When we smile, we appear likeable and courteous, but we�re also perceived to be more competent by those we are interacting with.

When you are serving as a safety manager, you�re in a position of trust. You need to behave in such a way that people trust you, trust your judgment, and try to understand your reasoning. So, say it with a smile.

Open Up

There are ways to �open up� your body language, and there are also ways to open up a discussion. For body language, movements such as angling your body towards the person you are speaking to, sitting or standing up straight, un-crossing your arms, and making eye contact would be a great place to start. Don�t consistently check your cell phone or computer while speaking to the other person.

An article in Forbes on �10 Simple and Powerful BodyLanguage Tips for 2014� explains additional methods for improving your body language. 

About to have an intense meeting? Nervous in large groups? Try this.

�Right before you enter the meeting room, take a deep breath and exhale through your mouth. (If you are unobserved, make a soft �ahh� sound.) Doing so releases the tension in your neck, shoulders and jaw that can make you look rigid or aggressive.�

Not sure when to stop a meeting? Not sure if you�ve �lost� your audience to boredom?

�People often signal that they are ready to end a conversation by assuming the position of someone ready to rise. (They may move to the edge of the chair, or lean forward with hands on the arms of the chair or hands on knees.)�

Also watch for people putting pen caps back on, closing notebooks or notepads, closing their tablet case, and putting their pen down. Your meeting is over. They�ve stopped listening. You�ll have to try to get their attention another way.

Need a quick mental pick-me-up to re-engage your focus throughout the day? Feeling overwhelmed?

�Your body helps you become [�] more dynamic [�] when it is grounded � feet planted firmly on the floor, a hips-width apart, with your weight evenly distributed. A broad stance like this calms your nervous system, allows you to breathe with ease, and amplifies your voice.�

I like to strike a quick yoga mountain pose with my office door closed before a meeting or site walk.

Per the Forbes article, if you keep your personality and posture relaxed, inclusive, and open, your coworkers and upper management will likely respond with cohesive, positive, and productive attitudes.

What about opening up a discussion? Are you just sitting across the table, barely making eye contact, waiting for the person talking to you to finish so you can interject your opinion? Or are you listening to their words, their tone of voice, and waiting to solve the problem until you�ve heard it all the way through?

There has been an increased focus on �active listening� in the media and in career-building circles.

• Hear the words the other person is saying
• Try to understand the complete message
• Do not form your counter argument while they are speaking
• Acknowledge what they are saying without interrupting (say �uh huh� or nod your head to show that you are listening, or at least following the pace of the conversation)
• Reflect back on what the other person is saying (i.e. �What I�m hearing is��)
• Ask questions to clarify a point you may have misunderstood

When you start asking questions, this presents an opportunity to discuss the problem and educate the person you are talking to. But if you haven�t really been listening, you might not fully understand the problem.

Use Your Eyes

You don�t need to work to develop Sherlock Holmes� skills of deductive reasoning � just use your eyes. Make direct but not intimidating eye contact. Is the person you�re speaking with nervous or afraid? Are they angry? Have they just come off a long shift? Are they exhausted? Do they look dehydrated?

Sometimes people will �blow things out of proportion� or come in to my office, eyes strained, veins pumping, face flushed, and ready to do battle over whatever issue is bothering them. Usually once I ask them to sit down to talk, offer them some water, and give them a chance to �blow off some steam,� they�ll come to a resolution for the problem on their own. They just need to work it out in a positive environment, free of the stimulus that was upsetting them.

I hope I�ve been doing better in listening and not pretending I know the ultimate answer to every safety or industrial hygiene problem that pops up. I�ve noticed that smiling at people, opening up my body language, fully listening to the issues brought to my attention, and using my eyes have helped improve my personal and professional relationships.

The Industrious Hygienist is never too busy for safety.

So here�s my commitment to current and future clients, co-workers, and management: I am never too busy for safety. Stop me and ask your question. I'll try to give you my full attention and really listen to what you have to say. 

Dear Aflac, a note about your advertising.

Dear Aflac �

I stumbled upon this advertisement on Thursday in a business magazine, and it caused me to become confused. My first thought was �Aflac doesn�t do worker�s compensation!� and my second thought was �I need to fix this advertisement.� I immediately went to your Aflac.com/business website as the advertisement instructed me to. There I learned that no, you don�t provide worker�s compensation, but yes, you do provide voluntary insurance to cover accidental injury that happens off-the-job.

Reads: "When your star employee gets hurt, Aflac will see him through."

Okay, also, why do you assume that the "star employee" is a male? Grrrr. Hear my inner feminist roar. 

Then I decided to learn more about your services (out of curiosity) and discovered your �AFLAC WorkForces Report � Executive Summary� from March 2012. I liked what you had to say about the state of the U.S. workforce and am paraphrasing or quoting pieces below.

Businesses need to recognize �the reality of a large number of workers simply biding their time before jumping ship at the first signs of economic stability.� You state that �business leaders need to be in prevention mode.� With this focus on prevention, why, oh why, did you use the phrase �When your star employee gets hurt� in your advertisement (emphasis added)?

Is it because you know that, according to the National Safety Council (NSC), U.S. workers work safer on the job than they do in their homes or communities?  The injuries or deaths that occur off-the-job in the home and community are due to poisoning, falls, mechanical suffocation, and drowning. According to the 2011 edition of the NSC Injury Facts:

• Nine out of ten deaths occurred off the job (90%!)
• Nearly 3/4 of medically consulted injuries occurred off the job

In the �AFLAC WorkForces Report � Executive Summary� you continue to focus on prevention and wellness programs � I believe that off-the-job safety should be a more prominent piece of wellness programs. You state that:

�Impactful wellness programs are not just hosting a company fun run, or hanging a few health-related posters around the office. Wellness programs must be comprehensive, engaging and holistic, encompassing key areas of employees� everyday lifestyle and include a focus on a healthy workplace and community, education about eating well and exercise, and the ability to manage stress and focus on prevention.�

If you could modify this statement to include education about off-the-job safety, it would make me happy.

You also discuss workplace mental health, and how workers� personal lives directly impact their productivity:

�Employers are also feeling the effects of worker anxiety. Individuals with stress caused by large outstanding debts and unstable financial situ�ations report incidences of ulcers and digestive problems, migraine and other headaches, anxi�ety, depression and even heart attacks at rates between two and three times the national aver�age. This stress translates into higher health care costs and other negative effects on the workplace. Financially-stressed employees experience high�er absenteeism and turnover, lower levels of job satisfaction and lower productivity.�

Another statement on personal distractions was the following:

�Companies are also experiencing higher produc�tivity losses due to distracted workers. Nearly half (46%) of workers who have experienced a personal issue that impacted their ability to get their work done, say it was due to a health is�sue specifically. Additionally, the Aflac study finds that nearly half of companies (43%) esti�mate their average productivity loss stemming from employees� concern over personal issues is between 11 and 30 percent. Productivity losses related to personal and family health problems cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee per year, or $225.8 billion annually.�

I appreciate that you didn�t blame the Internet or the various social networks for the worker distraction issues. Since many workers spend the majority of their waking hours a) away from their families, and b) at work trying to be productive, when family issues occur, workers are not able to just �turn off� their family responsibilities the second they walk in the door. The various social networks allow workers to maintain contact  and *hopefully* healthy relationships with their friends and families, on their terms, rather than taking unnecessary vacations, long phone calls, long lunches, personal days, etc.

I also appreciated your comments on communication of benefits in the workplace. Too often, employers just send an email or have a link on the company intranet that says �click here to learn about your benefits� leading to a gazillion-page document that is overwhelming to mentally digest. When employees go to Human Resources (HR) in this situation, telling them that they aren�t sure what to pick, they are often not helped by HR. You state that:

�Unfortunately, feedback from U.S. workers indicates most companies� communications and education about benefits isn�t up to par. In fact, the Aflac WorkForces Report finds that only nine percent of workers say their HR de�partment communicates extremely effectively about benefits packages offered. Another 22 percent say their HR department communi�cates not at all or not very effectively.�

I especially appreciated your comments on employee loyalty to employers:

�A more confident workforce, combined with more job openings, can lead many workers, who may be on the fence about job change, to move forward and make their exit. The recessionary environment has caused workers to reassess the employer-employee value proposition. They are now taking a closer look and asking, �What is my employer providing me, in both hard and soft benefits, that makes me loyal to them?��

There have been a number of studies on declining employee loyalty, which seem to boil down to these key points:

•           Employees feel their jobs are in constant threat due to massive layoffs during the recession.
•           Employers have reduced benefits (at higher cost to employees), to fatten the bottom line and please shareholders; this places all the risk for rising health care costs and pathetic 401k returns on the employee rather than the employer.
•           The Millennial generation (I am one!) has a different expectation for their careers. In short, we want to get back what we put into ANY relationship.
•          Employers have decreased the opportunities for growth and training while asking/forcing employees to take on job responsibilities they may not be prepared for.

So, in short, I am no longer confused by your advertisement and believe you offer a useful service. Voluntary benefits for employees at little to no cost for the employer � sounds good. 

I skimmed through the 2013 "Aflac WorkForces Report � Executive Summary� and appreciated the summary of findings relating to the Affordable Care Act and it's impact on employee benefits:

"Aflac�s third annual employee benefits study discovered:

• While more business leaders are embracing cost-friendly consumer-driven models, consumers are largely unequipped and unprepared to effectively take the reins.
• There are long-term implications for businesses taking a short-term approach of shifting control and responsibility of health insurance decisions to workers.
• An organization�s degree of health care benefits engagement and knowledge factors heavily into its HR metrics � attraction, satisfaction, productivity, and retention of talent.
• Amid massive changes in health care, what remains unchanged is the unequivocal role benefits satisfaction plays in the welfare of the workforce.
• The growing importance of voluntary products in a consumer-driven health care environment characterized by a largely financially fragile population."

I think your findings were well-portrayed in this image from the 2013 Executive Summary.

Aflac's portrayal of the cycle: Corporate Disengagement from Benefits Initiates Cycle of Difficulties.

BUT, I would like you to revise your future advertisements to focus on prevention and the services you actually offer. The advertisement shown previously is slightly misleading.

Something like this:

The Industrious Hygienist's revision of the Aflac advertisement: "If your employees get hurt off the job, Aflac will see them through."

Yours truly �

The Industrious Hygienist

OSHA Training Blog - GHS Label Signal Words: The Distinction between DANGER and WARNING

Lazy post, sorry! I am cross-posting more helpful information from the OSHA Training Blog.

OSHA Training Blog- GHS Label Signal Words: The Distinction between DANGER and WARNING: 

"June 1, 2013 -  No need to panic, at least not yet. But let me remind you that the deadline for training all employees on the changes brought about by OSHA�s adoption of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) into the Hazard Communication standard is getting closer by the day. And while the December 1, 2013 deadline for getting all mandatory employee training completed may seem a long way off, just remember that it was more than fourteen (14) months ago that the revised OSHA Haz-Com standard was published and the deadline was first announced! [...]"

[read more of this cross-post on the OSHATraining.com website]

Image courtesy of SourceForge.net

FIRST, mad props for the possible (intentional or not) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shout-out. I can never decide if I prefer the books or the 2005 film.

SECOND, find the full version of the GHS "purple book" on the OSHA website if you want to learn more about OSHA's implementation of GHS.

THIRD, if you are more of a visual person, OSHA developed a PowerPoint you can download for free or review for free to learn more about GHS.

Happy learning!

Funny sign from a large industrial plant

Found this sign at a steam/coal powerplant, right outside the Penthouse (top level of a twelve level industrial boiler). I laughed (thinking other things that it could relate to...husbands...zombie brains...whatever), snapped the picture, and got the heck out of there.  

I have returned from the dark side! (with slight corrosion)

May was a crazy month for me - I passed the Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) exam on May 17th, and received my diplomate certificate from the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH) a few weeks later. I was also fortunate enough to walk at the Arizona State University College of Environmental Technology and Innovation graduation ceremony for my Master of Science in Technology - Environmental Technology Management degree.

And if that wasn't enough, I also published a book review on Jordan Tama's National Security Reform: How Commissions Can Drive Change During Crises in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (JHSEM) in May.

I am working on an article with two of my professors from Arizona State University about my graduate research on hospital compliance with the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). It should be finished in a few weeks and then it goes to JHSEM for review.
?

Caution: Corrosives ... No, really?

In the vein of chemical safety (and corrosion!), I found these photos from one of the surveys I conducted at a local hospital for my CFATS research.

I loved this picture because there are so many things wrong with it!

This was next to several cooling towers. No one from the Facilities Department seemed to have a problem with the cabinet. :)




When I asked the safety coordinators from many hospitals in the Phoenix area about CFATS and their compliance level, I got a bunch of blank stares and hedging. So I decided to make it my graduate thesis research.
?

This is the base of the Caution: Corrosives cabinet.

?
The Facilities Department said that there wasn't anything in the cabinet, but I didn't have the proper personal protective equipment with me to check. It was also outside the scope of my survey.

I presented the results of my research to the American Society of Safety Engineers - Arizona Chapter Healthcare Section in 2010.

I look forward to sharing the link to my upcoming article when it is published by JHSEM.

Next week I plan to post about heat stress, since it is ~ 107 degrees Fahrenheit here in the sunny Southwest.

The 5S Standards

Recently I did some industrial hygiene work at a facility that practices the 5S Standards.

For those of you not familiar with the 5S standards, they are a workplace organization system that is focused on efficiency (time, space, personnel, etc.) and have gained a strong following in the United States.

The 5S Standards according to Wikipedia are:

• Sorting
• Straightening
• Systematic Cleaning
• Standardizing
• Sustaining

The client had sheets posted on every workstation and surface imaginable, making sure employees knew what to expect and how to achieve it. Each workstation had a picture showing the ideal configuration and cleanliness of the individual desk area.

I was a little weirded out at first. I went to go fill up my water bottle and saw that EVERYTHING was labeled and had a designated spot. Even trash cans and a water cooler had a label identifying it and a designated/taped off spot. The trash can did not have a labeled/taped-off area, so I moved it to the side (next to the water cooler) and then centered the water cooler in the designated area. I think this was around 1:30 in the morning. Overnight shifts tend to bring out the crazy in me, but this one was shaping up to be a doozy.  

But then I started getting stressed out about it. Something about the labeling and taped-off designated areas ignited my inner clean freak (not OCD, I swear), and I set about moving everything in the common areas into its correct spot. I left the fridge alone, though, since people tend to get grumpy when you move their food. After I calmed down and everything was in its "rightful place," the cleaning lady came in. She was ecstatic to have someone to talk to while she cleaned the office area, and she talked my ear off (in a nice way, I'll admit I was slightly bored and her presence was a welcome distraction).

Once she finished and moved to the next area, I went to check on the workers and freaked out. All of my attempts to instill order on the universe were thwarted by her sweeping and mopping. I mean, sure, the trash can is still technically in the box labeled "trash," but couldn't she see how off-center it was? AARGH. I checked on the workers and then went about re-fixing all the items in the common area so that everything was in its proper spot and centered. It took a good hour of my time, and no one noticed but me, but I felt that the spirit of 5S was upheld by my efforts. :)

If I worked there, this would make me a little bit insane.

I am amused by weird things.

Everybody wants a little Chin Fo.

This is my neighborhood Asian restaurant, and something about the sign caused me to giggle non-stop while I was trying to order Pad Thai and Mongolian Beef for lunch today. They're used to seeing me or my husband at least every other week, so they probably just thought I was being extra friendly and smiley. But you know the truth. Chin Fo. I'm grinning like an idiot just writing this.