Back injuries are among the most common workplace injuries, accounting for an estimated one in five on-the-job injuries. Those injuries cost U.S. industry billions of dollars every year, not to mention the pain and suffering the injured workers have to endure.

One of the most common means that employers use to address this problem is to mandate use of “back support belts”. The two biggest problems with this solution are the employer expense ($15-$20 each on average), and the misinformed belief that they actually prevent back injury. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, employers that rely on back belts to prevent injury should be aware that there is no scientific evidence supporting their use. NIOSH goes on to state:

“As a result of the NIOSH review, the Institute is concerned with the potentially harmful effects associated with a false sense of security that may accompany back belt use. There is some research showing that workers believe they can lift more when wearing a back belt. If workers falsely believe they are protected, they may subject themselves to even greater risk by lifting more weight than they would have without a belt.“

Here are some keys to preventing back injuries from taking down your workers – and your bottom line.

One False Move
The back is involved in almost every move a worker makes, and it only takes one false move to trigger an injury. For example:

• Strains can be triggered by overstretching, slouching, and improper lifting. The strain problem is compounded if an employee is carrying excess body weight-especially around the midsection.
• Sprains often result from sudden movements or sudden twisting of the body. With a sprain, soft tissues in the back, such as ligaments and muscles, are wrenched or torn, causing swelling and pain.
• Overflexion, or bending too far forward, is another common back problem that results in increased pressure on the cartilage of the spine. Damage to the cartilage, or “disks,” can cause swelling and pain that can last a long time.
• Overextension, or bending too far backward, also increases pressure on the spine, resulting in potential injury.

The most important thing your employees need to know about these injuries is that they’re all preventable. To eliminate back injuries among your workers, make sure they understand the three components of back safety - posture, lifting, and fitness.

Key #1: Posture
Maintaining proper posture while working is the first lesson your employees need to learn about back safety and health.

When workers stand, they should:

• Keep their head vertical and facing the work.
• Stand straight with ears, shoulders, and hips aligned.
• Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and weight in balance.

It also helps to elevate one foot on a footrest, and switch feet from time to time. So providing simple footrests for those who want to use them can also help prevent back problems. And for workers who have to stand for long periods while working, it’s a good idea to provide antifatigue or padded mats for them to stand on as well.

When workers sit, they should:

• Keep their head vertical and facing the work.
• Sit straight by keeping ears, shoulders, and hips aligned.
• Keep thighs parallel to the floor, with knees bent about 90 degrees.
• Rest feet flat on the floor or on a footrest.

Also ensure that your workers who sit most of the day have comfortable, adjustable chairs with a firm backrest. It’s a good idea to provide lumbar support pillows for those who need extra lower back support.

Key #2: Safe Lifting
Many back injuries can be traced to improper lifting and carrying. Your workers need to use good body mechanics every time they lift, carry, and unload objects.

When workers lift, they should:

• Face the load with feet shoulder-width apart.
• Keep heels down and turn feet slightly out.
• Squat by bending at the hips and knees.
• Use leg and stomach muscles to power the lift – not back muscles.
• Maintain the back’s natural curves as they lift by keeping their head up.

When workers carry objects, they should:

• Point their feet in the direction they move and walk at a slow, steady pace.
• Take small steps and turn their body as a single unit to avoid twisting the upper body.
• Hug the load. When they set down a load, employees should reverse the lifting process, making sure to bend the knees as they lower the load and letting their leg and stomach muscles bear the weight.

Key #3: Fitness
Out-of-shape, overweight employees are more likely to have back injuries than those whose muscles are toned and whose backs don’t have to support extra pounds. As little as 10 minutes a day of exercises like stomach crunches and knee bends, combined with another 15 or 20 minutes of walking or some other physical activity, can help employees maintain a healthy weight and toned muscles.

OSHA says that its specifications for workplace safety signs and tags apply to the design, application, and use of all signs or symbols intended to indicate and define specific hazards.

According to OSHA, all workplace safety signs must:

• Contain sufficient information to be easily understood.
• Be concise, accurate, and easy to read.
• Identify the hazard.
• Explain in a few words how to prevent accidents and injuries.

In addition, all signs should be placed in prominent locations where workers can see them before they face the hazard.

You also need to be sure that your signs don’t themselves constitute a hazard. That’s why OSHA requires safety signs to have rounded or blunt corners and be free of sharp edges, burrs, splinters, or other sharp projections. Also, the ends or heads of bolts or other fastening devices must be located in such a way that they can’t cause injury.

Tags: Signal Words and the Major Message

Tags should be used to warn of hazardous conditions, equipment, or operations when signs, guarding, or other positive means of protection can’t be used.

All required tags must contain a signal word-for example, “Danger,” “Caution,” or “Warning” – and a major message indicating the specific hazardous condition or the instruction to be communicated to the employee.

Danger tags should be used only in major hazard situations where an immediate hazard presents a threat of death or serious injury to employees. Caution tags should be used only in situations where a nonimmediate or potential hazard or unsafe practice presents a lesser threat of employee injury. Warning tags may be used to represent a hazard level between Caution and Danger.

Here are some other OSHA requirements for accident-prevention tags:

• The signal word must be readable at a minimum distance of 5 feet or such greater distance as warranted by the hazard.
• The major message should be presented in either pictographs, written text, or both.
• Both the signal word and the major message must be understandable to all employees who may be exposed to the identified hazard.
• Tags should be affixed as close as safely possible to their respective hazards by a positive means such as string, wire, or adhesive that prevents their loss or unintentional removal.
• Tags should not be removed until such time as the identified hazard is eliminated or the hazardous operation is completed.

Do you really need to document every bit of your safety training?  The short answer is, yes, you do, even if OSHA doesn’t require it.

More than 100 separate OSHA rules feature training requirements. Some of those standards also require you to certify that training has been successfully completed and that employees have learned the skills and information they need to work safely.

For example, OSHA’s process safety management standard (29 CFR 1910.119) requires documentation of training, as does the powered industrial truck standard (29 CFR 1910.178). And DOT’s hazardous materials transportation regulations (49 CFR Parts 171-180) require you to keep records of training conducted in the preceding 3 years.

But even when documentation isn’t expressly required in the regulations, as a practical matter, you should keep records of all safety training. As OSHA points out, documentation that proves training has been conducted and that employees have successfully completed the training provides evidence of your good-faith compliance with OSHA standards in general. Documentation can also supply an answer to one of the first questions an OSHA inspector will ask when investigating a workplace injury: “Was the injured employee trained to do the job?”

Documentation provides additional benefits. For example, your safety training documentation will help you:

• Keep up to date with annual or periodic training requirements included in state and federal government regulations
• Maintain efficient training schedules and select appropriate trainers and trainees
• Identify at a glance which employees have already been trained and which training topics they have completed
• Decide if employees are qualified to work safely in their assigned jobs
• Determine retraining, refresher training, or additional training needs
• Diagnose accident and injury patterns to see where additional training may be required or where current training is failing to achieve goals

If you don’t already have a centralized training log, you need one now. Your safety documentation should be kept in such a way as to make it easily available to those who need to refer to it. Keep these tips in mind:

• Your safety training log can be maintained either as paper or computer files, whichever is easiest. But if you use computer files, make sure they’re backed up.
• Include the name and department of each employee trained, the date(s) of the training session(s), the name of the trainer(s), the topic of the training session, the length of the session (to show how much time was spent on the topic), and frequency of training required.
• Keep all training records accurate and up to date.
• Have employees sign an attendance sheet or some other document that proves they attended the session. Also, have them sign any evaluations, such as quizzes, skill proficiency tests, and so on.
• Document your evaluation method by keeping an individual dated record for each worker that lists the methods you used to verify that the employee learned what was required in training.
• Document when additional training is required to achieve proficiency, and include the date on which such additional training took place.

Failure to meet government recordkeeping requirements can result in citations and fines.  Unless you know who needs training, in what, and when, your safety training program will not be effective.  Training documentation ensures that employees have the skills and knowledge to perform their jobs safely and avoid accidents and injuries.

At Central Florida Safety Academy, we provide not only individual student completion cards for each on-site class we teach, but also documentation for each student that can be placed into your training files. Our online courses also include printable training documentation that provides all pertinent course details once the course is completed.

From the Centers for Disease Control-

During the upcoming holiday season, and all year, keep safety in mind whenever you’re on the road. Tips from CDC’s Injury Center on motor vehicle safety can help you protect yourself, your passengers, and your family and friends. Whether you’re headed around town, out of town, or out to celebrate, we wish you a safe holiday season.

Protect Your Passengers

Whenever you’re on the road this holiday season, remember to always buckle up. Wearing your seat belt can reduce your risk of dying in a crash by about half.  Also, make sure your young passengers are buckled into appropriate safety seats. The safest place for children of any age to ride is properly restrained in the back seat. Data show that child safety seats reduce the risk of death in car crashes by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers ages one to four.

Learn more about child passenger safety and CDC’s research and activities in this area.

Learn more about alcohol-impaired driving and CDC’s research and activities in this area.

Know How Much Parents Matter

This holiday season, and throughout the year, talk with your teen about the dangers of driving—and keep the conversation going. CDC also encourages you to take these steps, which have been proven to reduce serious injury and death:

• Extend your teen’s supervised driving period.
  Help your teen develop the skills he or she needs by providing as many supervised practice driving hours as possible. Include at least 30 to 50 hours of practice over at least six months. Make sure to practice on a variety of road conditions and at different times of day.

• Set the rules of the road.
  Practice driving will empower your teen. But your rules will provide much needed limits to keep him or her safe.

  Support the rules that most states have for new teen drivers by including the following:

  • Make sure your teen always wears a seat belt.
  • Limit your teen’s nighttime driving.
  • Restrict the number of teen passengers allowed in the car.

• Enforce the rules with a Parent-Teen Driving Contract ( 215KB, 2 pages) .
  Discuss your rules of the road with your teen. Talk about why they are important to follow, as well as consequences for breaking the rules. Work with your teen to draft and sign a parent-teen driving contract. You may choose to hang your parent-teen driving contract on the refrigerator door to highlight the importance of safe driving. Let your teen know that following the rules and driving safely will result in greater driving privileges.

Learn more about teen driver safety and CDC’s research and activities in this area.

More Information

• CDC: Information on Motor Vehicle Safety
• CDC: Information on Child Passenger Safety
• CDC: Information on Impaired Driving
• CDC: Information on Teen Drivers
• Protect the Ones You Love: Road Traffic Injuries
• Task Force on Community Preventive Services and the Community Guide: Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety
• CDC Podcasts on Motor Vehicle Safety

Workplace violence is awful, and to deal with that awfulness, we tend to describe it as a random act by an unstable person. Yet, thats not true, according to Chris McGoey, an expert and consultant on workplace violence who has investigated many of the worst cases in recent history. “In virtually every case there were signs beforehand which were ignored,” says McGoey. Plus, the sad fact is, workplace violence is far more common than anyone would think. Even as this story was being written, media reports told of an ex-employee at a nail polish factory in New Windsor, N.Y., who returned a year after he was fired and shot a receptionist and the two owners of the business. A USA Today analysis last year indicated that an average of 25 people per week are injured and one person per week dies from workplace violence.

McGoey acknowledges that “its impossible to write a manual that will cover every possible scenario.” So, instead, McGoey says, you plan for a few probable ones and spend the rest of your time getting your response plan down pat. Here are some of McGoeys guidelines.

1. Build and train a team.
Responding to workplace violence starts well before any incident. Recruit a core group and train them as a response team. Include HR, security, business unit management and, if possible, a trained mediator and a crisis counselor. McGoey says you can use any number of books on workplace violence for training and bring in consultants to help build the plan, but you should also simulate scenarios. The response plan will not be general. It will specify parameters of what is appropriate when; what is tolerable behavior on the premises; what behavior will lead to removal from the premises; and when it is appropriate to disable an employee and call the authorities. The plan will assign each team member specific responsibilities because, as McGoey says, “you cant be making hand signals or phone calls during a crisis. Everyone has to know their role beforehand.”

2. Know the law. Your rights and responsibilities in a crisis vary depending on who is acting violently. Is the person an employee or a stranger? Has he threatened someone, or is he just acting erratically? Bring in local law enforcement to educate your team on the state laws that will govern your response.

3. Watch for signs. “One of the first things you hear after an incident is, He had been saying some weird stuff, but I didnt think he was serious,” says McGoey. “Even veiled threats must be taken seriously.” Make sure the team, and employees in general, know to always report suspicious comments or behavior to the CSO or HR or both, no matter how minimal the threat seems. Also watch for the common events that often lead to violence: being passed over for a promotion, marital strife and, especially, public embarrassment. CSOs should educate managers on recognizing such signals and how to respond. “There are a lot more bad managers than good ones,” McGoey says. “When someones behaving badly [bad managers] become insulting and demeaning and they criticize the person in front of their peers. They actually escalate the situation.”

4. Strike preemptively. Act to deter a crisis. Segregate bickering employeeswork spaces to minimize their interaction; give a comp day (or several) for an angry employee to cool off; or, give him a lateral transfer to eliminate a strained employee-manager relationship. Take discipline and performance reviews out of managers hands and give them to a neutral third party. McGoey says the best proactive stepone he cant stress enoughis to treat people with respect. “You dont know whats going on in someones personal life, it could be in shambles. So many people in this world are walking on eggshells. Dont demean them or embarrass them or threaten them.” Its the easiest way to make a potentially violent situation actually violent.

Still, if a person is threatening violence, put your crisis plan to use. Here are some ways McGoey says you can de-escalate a situation.

5. Remove the source. Evacuate the subject of a violent persons anger. “They cant be part of the conversation,” McGoey says. Have the source leave the room or send the person home. You can also arrange to protect that person until the crisis is diffused.

6. Mediate. A neutral person should intervene. The mediator should not be a uniformed security officer, police officer or high-ranking executive. Those people connote authority, and in a potentially violent situation, authority can make a person feel cornered and trigger violence. A good choice for this role could be a plainclothes security staffer trained in mediation and crisis counseling. “You have to have a competent person who knows how to de-escalate the situation” through dialogue, McGoey says.

7. Shift to neutral. If possible, take the person to a neutral location in the office. This further removes him from the source of his anger. This site should be chosen during planning; it should move the potential for violence away from other employees and give a pre-selected team member time to call the authorities if the team leader believes thats necessary.

8. Escort and warn, or disable. By now, the situation likely will have forked one of two ways: Either the person will have become violent, or he will have calmed down. If the person turns violent, disable him by pinning him to the ground, for example. Get police onsite as soon as possible. If the person appears to be calmed down, escort him completely off the premises. McGoey says companies often escort someone only out of the building, and then the person returns through a back door or waits for his target to exit the building. Also, you must give the person a “trespass warning.” This is a declarative statement informing the person that he is no longer welcome on the property. “Theres specific statutory language that varies from state to state that you want to use when giving this warning,” says McGoey. With that, the crisis should be defused. But you still have some work to do.

9. Stay vigilant. If the person is an employee, revoke his workplace access privileges. Cancel access cards and network accounts. Inform other tenants in the building of the incident; include a picture if possible. Brief guards at entrance gates and also surveillance staff so that theyll be on the lookout. In most cases, time calms down the angry person, so if youve made it this far without violence, chances are there will be none. But in a few cases, a desperate person will plan a return. If that happens, the more prepared you are, the better.

Central Florida Safety Academy can help your business prepare for workplace violence. Drawing from twenty five years of experience in the safety and security profession, we can review your existing plans, or assist you in creating one.

Emergency training is not “one size fits all.”

The proper emergency response to a fire might be quite different than to a hurricane, a release of toxic chemicals, or a terrorist attack. Not knowing the difference could make a bad situation a lot worse—and you don’t want to wait until a disaster happens to find out that your emergency training is … well, a disaster. So the first step in an effective training program is to identify what types of emergencies might actually occur and determine the appropriate response for each. This may mean that you need to have more than one type of training for different possible emergencies.

OSHA’s guidelines are a good start.

Although OSHA’s standards related to emergency response provide little specific direction on what training must include, other OSHA publications have specific guidelines for emergency response training. These guidelines include the following general training points:

• Recognizing potential hazards and threats that might create an emergency
• Contents of the company’s Emergency Action Plan (EAP)
• Location and use of common emergency response equipment, such as alarms
• Individual roles and responsibilities
• Warning, alarm, and communication procedures and systems
• Evacuation and shelter procedures
• Reporting and accountability procedures (that is, making sure everyone is accounted for in an emergency)
• Equipment shutdown procedures

Because fast response is critical in an emergency, practical exercises and drills should be considered essential to effective emergency training. And remember that employees with specific emergency response duties must receive additional, specialized training.

Don’t forget to update emergency training.

OSHA also provides guidelines on when to provide emergency training. Clearly, it’s not enough simply to train once and forget about it. OSHA encourages emergency training:

• Immediately after developing an EAP
• After revisions to the EAP
• For all new employees
• For employees with new responsibilities or assignments
• When new equipment, materials, or processes are introduced
• When exercises and drills show unsatisfactory performance
• In any event, at least annually

Why It Matters…

In FY 2004, OSHA gave out more than 300 citations for violations of its Emergency Action Plan rules.
Life-threatening emergencies can happen in any workplace, so it simply makes sense to make sure employees know how to respond properly and safely.

A comprehensive emergency response program can also help reduce legal, insurance, and recovery costs. EAPs are also a critical component of every Business Continuity Plan. Central Florida Safety Academy specializes in Workplace Emergency Preparedness and Response programs. Whether your business needs a review of an existing plan or program, or need to create one, we can help!

Who needs to have an Emergency Action Plan?

There are two different, but equally correct, answers to this question. The first answer is that OSHA requires an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) only for employers who are covered by certain standards, such as “Fixed Extinguishing Systems” and “Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals” (other standards also require EAPs). The second answer is that every company really should have an EAP. Not only does OSHA highly recommend it, but it simply makes sense to have a plan for a safe, orderly response to emergencies such as fires, weather events, releases of hazardous substances, etc. And note that even relatively minor incidents, such as small fires or spills, constitute an “emergency” if they trigger an alarm and require employees to stop what they’re doing and evacuate their work areas.

What should an EAP contain?

OSHA includes helpful guidelines for EAPs as an appendix to its standard on Exit Routes, EAPs, and Fire Prevention Plans (29 CFR 1910, Subpart E). In brief, the EAP should address any emergencies that might reasonably be expected to happen in your workplace and include:

• Procedures for reporting the emergency
• Evacuation procedures–ideally, the EAP should include floor plans showing exit routes and assembly points
• How to account for all employees who have evacuated
• Responsibilities of any employees who are designated to stay behind and ensure safe shutdown of operations
• Responsibilities of any employees who may be designated to perform rescue or medical duties

What should emergency response training include?

Every employee needs to know what he or she is expected to do when an emergency alarm sounds–and further, to do it quickly. For most employees, the proper response is simply to evacuate the work area in a rapid but orderly manner, using proper exit routes, and to assemble in a designated “safe area.” However, some employees–OSHA calls them “evacuation wardens”–should be given the responsibility for making sure that other employees leave the area properly and safely. OSHA recommends one warden for every 20 employees, and suggests that they receive specialized training in:

• Knowing the complete layout of the building or work area, including the various exit routes
• Giving guidance and instruction to employees during evacuation
• Knowing how to assist employees, such as those with disabilities, who may need assistance
• Checking all rooms and enclosed spaces to make sure that no one is left behind

Why It Matters…

• OSHA estimates there are approximately 200 workplace deaths and 5,000 workplace injuries each year due to fire, one of the most common types of emergencies.
• In FY 2004, OSHA issued more than 300 citations for violations of its rule on Emergency Action Plans.

Safety experts all agree that knowing how to act quickly and properly in an emergency is the key to saving lives and preventing injuries. Central Florida Safety Academy specializes in Workplace Emergency Preparedness and Response programs. Whether your business needs a review of an existing plan or program, or need to create one for OSHA compliance, we can help!

Take time to remind employees about safety basics.

If most of your safety training sessions focus on the details of specific hazards and work practices, you can easily forget to step back and remind employees about the “big picture.” Fundamentally, that means developing an all-around “safety attitude”—keeping safety in mind at all times and in all situations—not just at work, but also at home and on vacation. In fact, practicing safety at work is only part of the picture: Nearly 90 percent of fatal injuries and two-thirds of nonfatal but disabling injuries to American workers occur away from the job.

Be alert to the most hazardous situations.

Part of safety basics is knowing the most common causes of death and serious injury so that you can stay particularly alert to these possible hazards. As a training exercise, ask your employees to name what they think are the five leading causes of accidental death, then compare their list to the most recent available statistics for 2003:

• Motor vehicles—which accounted for more than 40 percent of fatal accidents both overall and in the workplace
• Falls (16 percent)—falls were also the leading cause of serious nonfatal injuries
• Poisoning (13 percent)
• Choking (4 percent)
• Drowning and fires (tied at about 3 percent each)

Emphasize the “secret weapon” against accidents. Actually, the secret weapon isn’t really all that secret … it’s common sense! Remind employees that most accidents can be prevented simply by paying attention to hazards and engaging their brains before they act in a potentially unsafe manner. Ask your groups to name examples of using common sense to enhance safety; these might include:

• Reading the label on a chemical container before using it
• Wearing all required PPE whenever known hazards are present
• Removing or avoiding any possible slipping, tripping, and falling hazards
• Making sure flammable and combustible materials are kept away from sources of ignition
• Never disabling or circumventing safety devices, such as machine guards
• Staying away from power lines or any type of energized electrical equipment
• Asking a supervisor for help and guidance if they are not sure how to do a job safely

Work injuries cost Americans more than $150 billion per year, or more than $1,000 per worker.

Why It Matters…

• There are more than 100,000 accidental deaths per year in the United States, including close to 5,000 in the workplace.
• More than 3 million Americans suffer disabling injuries on the job each year.

Central Florida Safety Academy offers a broad  range of safety courses to help meet your training requirements. Most of our online courses are also available on-site if you operate within the Central Florida area.