Workplace Violence & Security: Are Your Employees Safe?

Is your office, shop, or plant prepared to deal with a workplace violence incident?  Are your field workers?  If you aren’t sure or think it is unlikely to occur, consider this: According to OSHA, some 2 million American workers are victims of workplace violence every year.  Workplace violence can strike anywhere and anytime, and no one is immune.

Workplace violence can take place at or outside of work. It is defined as violence or the threat of violence against workers. Violence in the work environment can range from threats, verbal abuse, harassment, to physical assault and homicide.

Certain workers are at higher risk according to OSHA.  These include, but are not limited to, workers who exchange money with the public, who work alone or in small groups, and who work early in the morning or late at night. Also, workers in certain industries (healthcare, social services, municipal utilities, law enforcement, retail, and in-home installations) are at increased risk.

It is important to acknowledge workplace violence as a real threat and take it seriously. The best protection employers can offer is to establish a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence against or by employees. OSHA advises employers to create a Workplace Violence Prevention Program (OSHA/PEOSH standards) and ensure all employees are trained on it and thoroughly understand policies and procedures concerning it.

Here are some other tips for keeping workers safe:

• Provide safety education for employees so they know what behavior is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace environment.

• Consider installing video surveillance, extra lighting, and alarm systems.

• Minimize access by outsiders to your facilities by using ID badges, electronic keys, and if necessary, security guards.

• Recommend field staff and employees working alone have cell phones and handheld alarms, requiring them to check in regularly.

• Instruct workers to never enter a location that they feel may be unsafe.

• Train employees on your workplace violence procedures annually and remind them frequently to keep their eyes and ears open and report anything that makes them feel awkward, uncomfortable, or unsafe. Even if they don’t experience it but saw or heard it they must report it!

Workers need to know employers have a system in place for their protection. It is critical to ensure all employees know the policy and understand that all claims of workplace violence will be investigated and dealt with promptly.

The Changing Role of Law Enforcement

De-escalation is the PROCESS of using STRATEGIES and TECHNIQUES intended to decrease the intensity of an escalating situation.

Keeping communities safe and enhancing officer skills and safety is of paramount importance for law enforcement, thus there is an ever-growing emphasis on the continued need to leverage de-escalation tactics. How law enforcement officers perform this obligation and how their actions are perceived by the community sets the foundation of their legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Focusing on this need for de-escalation will help facilitate trust within the community and reduce violent physical encounters.

De-escalation is not new, and officers have used it in its many forms since policing started. De-escalation saves lives and careers every year, but with complex and ever-changing societal conditions, law enforcement must evolve, grow and adapt to do it better today than they did yesterday.

OMAG has two Law Enforcement Specialist that have been Providing De-Escalation Training since 2008 with the use of a Shooting Simulator.  In 2018 they expanded De-Escalation training by adding ICAT (Integrating Communications Assessment and Tactics) training.   Since 2018 after providing ICAT training we have seen a positive change in how officers react to handling subjects who may have a mental disorder or subjects in crises when using the Shooting Simulator.

If your police department is interested in hosting the ICAT De-Escalation Training or the shooting simulator at your department or in your region please contact Billy Carter at wcarter@omag.org or Kevin McCullough at kmccullough@omag.org for additional information.

PowerPoint Tips & Tricks

Have you ever been asked to create a presentation but didn’t know where to start? Do you feel like your presentations are a little lackluster?

OMAG has developed a short guideline of best practices to help in making your presentations the best they can be. Look for more in the future, but for now this should help to get you started. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please contact Matthew Burleson.

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January 2019 Risk & Safety Newsletter

Municipalities Must Take GHS-HazCom Training Seriously

The final GHS (Global Harmonization System) deadline is now long past. OSHA’s alignment of the HazCom (Hazardous Communication Standard) to GHS has provided a wakeup call to millions of companies across the U.S. to do a better job with their HazCom programs, especially when it comes to training. Unfortunately, not all Oklahoma municipalities have embraced this new standard. HazCom violations remain the number 2 violation on OSHA’s top 10 list of violations.

This article provides four steps employers can take to ensure employees understand the chemical hazards present in their work environments and to comply with GHS updates to HazCom.

• Step One: Build a Training Program Focused on Usefulness

  • While OSHA, and here in Oklahoma, the Department of Labor’s PEOSH division don’t specify how to do training, they do state that training must be effective. Employees must carry their learning into the workplace and be able to put it to use. HazCom has two key components: 1) providing employees with a basic understanding of the HazCom standard (OMAG works with many of our cities and towns to provide this understanding.); and 2) training employees on the specific hazards of the chemicals to which they are exposed and providing protection through administrative controls, engineering controls, and personal protective equipment (These are the responsibility of the employer and its departmental supervisors.)

  • In the past, HazCom with GHS focused on training workers to understand the new SDS (safety data sheets) and labeling formats accompanied with GHS adoption. However, many employers lacked a basic level of understanding about HazCom (municipalities included), making it difficult for them to comprehend and address the changes brought by the new GHS alignment. As a result, workers were never adequately trained on HazCom in the first place or had been trained so long ago that what they learned had been forgotten. It is critical that employers continue to emphasize basic HazCom training, which now includes GHS information to ensure employees are able to use the information in their day-to-day activities.

  • The second component of an effective HazCom training program focuses on the individual hazards employees face. Departmental supervisors must train their employees on the specific chemicals used and their hazards. The key here is to provide employees with a deeper understanding of the dangers and emergency situations they face, and counter them by following written policies and procedures.

• Step Two: Deliver Training So Employees Can Understand It

  • When OSHA first published the HazCom Standard in 1983, it followed the concept of the employee’s “right to know” about the hazards to which they might be exposed. A primary driver for OSHA’s adoption of the GHS has been the desire to improve employee comprehension of critical chemical safety information.

  • With GHS, OSHA is indicating it’s not enough for workers to just know about the hazards; instead they have the “right to understand” those hazards and know what related safety precautions to take.

  • The pre-GHS employee “right to know” concept often translated into giving workers access to MSDSs and labels and making sure they were aware of the hazards that existed from chemicals in their work environment. This approach didn’t always translate to employees understanding the safety and health information being conveyed on the MSDS and labels. GHS adoption helped solve this issue by bringing harmonization and consistency to the structure of the safety data sheets (formerly MSDS, now SDS) and labels. Use of standardized hazard communication elements, such as pictograms, make it possible for workers to more easily understand the hazards associated with chemicals workers use or are around. This simplified approach to communicating hazard information makes it possible to protect workers of all backgrounds. For instance, pictograms make it easier for illiterate and non-English speaking employees to understand the nature of a product’s hazardous properties.

  • The “right to understand” concept compliments OSHA’s rule on employee HazCom training – that it must be presented in a manner all employees can comprehend and retain. When applied to HazCom training, this means that employees who work with or around hazardous chemicals must receive training in a language they can understand, even if the documents (SDSs and labels) are only required in English.

• Step Three: Provide Easy Access to SDSs

  • A key aspect of HazCom training is to make sure employees know how to get direct access to Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) and other hazardous chemical information. Some employers are using electronic solutions to help employees retrieve information from their inventory of SDSs. If this is true with your municipality, it is incumbent on you to make sure employees are made aware of the system, how to access it, and how to use it. Without that access, in the event of an emergency, even an employee that has received adequate training on labels and SDSs will still be at risk should a chemical event occur that requires quick action. For that reason, many employers are taking advantage of technological advancements and using mobile solutions to put SDSs in the hands of their employees. The best Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) software solutions today leverage the cloud to make critical chemical safety information available anywhere, any time. One problem with using technology solutions, however, is many municipalities don’t have the financial resources to provide such innovative techniques. Therefore, keeping updated SDSs available to workers in a binder within the work environment of the workers may still be the best way to provide them with quick environmental, safety, and health information when a chemical event occurs. These binders can be kept in trucks, shops, and offices - wherever the employee has access to them.

• Step Four: Keep It Consistent

  • While OSHA and OK DOL-PEOSH don’t require employee training to be performed in specific intervals of time, regular training (at least annually) is a best practice to help ensure your employees better retain HazCom with GHS information. Other instances for training may include newly hired employees, temporary employees, visiting contract workers, or when a new chemical is introduced to a department. This helps ensure that employees who might work with or around a hazardous chemical understand its potential hazards.

It is vitally important to view HazCom and GHS training as an ongoing obligation. Over my years of travel around the state performing inspections and trainings for OMAG shareholders (cities and towns), I have personally noted frequent inadequacies with regard to HazCom and GHS training and information resources. The safety of your employees must be a priority in your day-to-day operations for their sake, for your municipality’s sake, and for the health and welfare of the state of Oklahoma.

May 2018 - Risk and Safety Newsletter