Safety Culture Plus

A new doctoral thesis from Karolinska Institutet reveals that professionals may overlook important information when they search for research findings about injury prevention and safety promotion. The typical search uses no more than one or two online databases, and often only familiar search terms are used thereby limiting the search even further.

"Our findings are compelling because we were able to identify problems both with how professionals look for published research about safety and with the way that the online literature databases is organized," says Dr David Lawrence, Postgraduate Student at Karolinska Institutet. "This knowledge should be helpful in teaching people to be better searchers and for making improvements to the design of databases."

Safe Workplace and Safety News: Safety Decisions Often Based On Incomplete Information

Safety at work is everybody’s business. But instilling a culture of responsible safety behaviour, particularly on mining projects which involve many contractor companies and individuals, can be challenging.

However, a number of measures and techniques have proven to be successful in encouraging diverse workers with varying degrees of commitment to safety, to adopt uniform safety behaviour.

Read the rest of this great article at Safety Culture

Evaluate the Safety Committee, its organization and effectiveness

From your observations and file reviews, on a scale of 1 (ineffective) to 10 (great asset o the process), does the existing Safety Committee currently operate in a manner that enhances your safety process efforts? 

Many organizations have developed a safety committee.  These may be mandated by management, regulation or labor contracts.  Committees are recommended in safety and quality theory as a way to assure involvement by employees.  However, the effectiveness of safety committees varies widely.   Some are highly efficient and an asset to the safety process.   On the other end of the spectrum, they can be a great place to meet, gossip, gripe, and have coffee and a snack, accomplishing nothing.  If you find that you have a dud committee, you need to take action to reorganize and regenerate it.   The employees may or may not welcome the change and it will require an element of tact and diplomacy to effect any change. 

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