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Showing posts from 2016

Excessive and Inappropriate Speeds

First word: They say it is not speed that kills but change in speed. Confused? Don’t be because simply put, if a vehicle travelling at 100km/hr is suddenly forced to 0km/hr in a few seconds, the results can be devastating. The occupants could be in for a lot of trouble especially if they were unrestrained by seatbelts while the vehicle was still in motion. That then is the logic behind the saying that it is not speed that kills but CHANGE in SPEED! Excessive speeds + Loss of control accounted for 35%+17% respectively i.e. 52% of crashes recorded in the country – Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Corps Marshal. – (Jan-Nov. 2012). Speed Limits World Health Organization (WHO) identified the issue of speed as a risk factor in road traffic injuries, influencing the risk of a crash as well as the severity of injuries resulting. In fact, WHO and the Global Road Safety Partnership, in a publication, Speed Management: a Road Safety Manual for Decision Makers and Practitioners recomm

Celebrating World Safety and Health at Work Day

Today, 865 000 people will either die or be injured doing their job. Every year, lost work days, medical treatment, workers’ compensation and rehabilitation of occupational injuries and diseases will cost $2.8 trillion. – Sandy Smith, 28 th . April 2016 International Labor Organization (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder used the occasion of World Safety and Health at Work Day to remind us that ensuring decent, safe, and healthy working conditions and environments is the responsibility of us all. Ryder took office on Oct. 1, 2012 and sees the ILO as absolutely central to the questions of the day: jobs, social protection, the fight against poverty and equality. Ryder wants the ILO to play a role in difficult global situations – such as economic crisis – and on the national agendas of countries undergoing change, especially where the world of work is at stake. The news is punctuated periodically by intense coverage of dramatic, heartbreaking stories that capture global atten

Are you on the same workplace SAFETY PAGE with your contractor....?

  First word: Dealing with contractors can be tricky in that there can be many a slip twit the operational cup and the lips by way of whose or which safety rule should apply, given that both parties have their own rulebooks on how safety is to be managed in their respective businesses. Such that if the two sides do not move to agree on a common front ahead of time they’re likely to end up with gaps and conflicts potentially harmful to the common interest as a situation of ‘one rule for them and one for us’ can rapidly take shape which can in turn, translate to different safety rules, different standards, different approaches, different interpretations and different philosophies within same work enclosure. Nothing leads to chaos and confusion faster than that, seeing how The Right to Choose is not exactly compatible with good workplace safety management. It places a serious and conspicuous question mark on the overall safety of the site. So if contractor employees feel that it is ok

SAFE, EFFICIENT AND PROFITABLE PRODUCTION

Managing safely is synonymous to safe and efficient production. Yet not many businesses make that connection until it’s too late. All too often they suffer a death blow before sitting down to examine what went wrong. Experience shows that Managers who pay little attention to safety only end up paying a big time price attending to all kinds of post-incident business loss activities. Issues like absenteeism, lost workdays, spiraling medical bills, sagging public image, poor workforce morale, increase insurance premiums, dwindling production and a shrinking bottom line. It follows that poor safety performance directly translates to poor returns on investment and you don’t have to look too far to see it or why. It’s clearly signposted all over the workplace place; in the employees’ body language, asset use and misuse, mounting unresolved environmental issues, etc. Like they say, you can run but you can’t hide because safety issues are like a pack of dominoes, one falls and they all fal

Before you moan about how much your safety programmes are not working, maybe you should ask yourself what you’re doing right instead of what you’re doing WRONG! (Part 1)

First word : Time and time again chief executives and business owners moan buckets about how their safety programmes don’t seem to be working for no reason (or a lot of reasons!). They’ve tried every trick in the book but their people just won’t cotton on for reasons of laziness, hard headedness, indiscipline, lack of interest and so on. And after all the pile of money they’ve invested in safety for the workers' sake, including very attractive SAFETY INCENTIVE SCHEMES no dice. Incentives! Hmmm.. Do you reckon your people are that oblivious of the fact of what’s good for their health, safety and security at work? Or it’s a case of you going at them with a baseball bat each time, in the name of protecting them from their ‘death wish selves’? You really believe those guys look forward to being stretchered out to some hospital ER ward instead of returning home hale and hearty at the end of any work day? Think again boss. Things are not always what they seem. You see, your ways and

The challenge of SAFETY

  Ok, let’s get real. Everybody has their pet challenge with safety, what yours? Money (obviously!), people, material, tools, work environment, client sales or what? In the circumstances, Safety is a ‘hated’ word for some, if not most, especially the small timers. Right now, times are HARD – extremely hard, no doubt! With no money anywhere and the business snoozing fitfully on the slow lane, what does anyone expect? In fact things are so bad that you feel like chucking in your hand and giving up for good. But what good would that do you and your outfit, and how clever is that anyway for a business strategy? Zero! And what’s the point of a self-knockout blow before your opponent’s first punch? Not very clever is it? So why not meet the challenge head-on, if only to give the business a fighting chance? You never know, after all attack is the best form of defense. Be bold and valiant therefore, go for it. Begin by asking yourself some illuminating questions. Why IS safety not a ‘we