What is Occupational Hygiene?

Date: September 5th, 2017

Often when people hear the word “hygienist”, their minds immediately jump to teeth cleaning.

Occupational hygiene involves dealing with a variety of workplace hazards, but plaque is typically not one of them!

Occupational hygiene is the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of workplace hazards to prevent occupational illness, injury, and disease. The hazards hygienists focus on are grouped into the following hazard categories:

· Biological (fungi, bacteria, viruses)

· Chemical (metals, solvents, air contaminants)

· Physical (noise, radiation, temperature)

· Ergonomic (repetitive motions, manual handling, vibration)

These hazards can affect an extremely wide variety of industries, including mining, construction, healthcare, aviation, and oil and gas.

Anticipation and Recognition

Anticipation and recognition of hazards present within the workplace is the first step in the effective control of hazards. This can involve site visits and observing tasks to identify where hazards exist.

Evaluation

Once hazards have been identified, evaluation is often required to determine whether there is the potential for a hazardous exposure. Evaluation may involve collecting air monitoring data to determine whether exposure to airborne contaminants exceeds allowable exposure limits, or monitoring noise levels to determine whether workers are at risk of Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL).

Control

Control measures must be implemented to prevent hazardous exposure from occurring. Controls must be considered following the hierarchy of controls:

1. Elimination

Eliminating the hazard can be the most effective method of risk control. The hazard may be removed from the workplace through design or redesign of the workplace, task, or activity. There is no residual risk when a hazard is truly eliminated.

2. Substitution

Risk can be eliminated or reduced by substituting the hazardous product, process, or material with a less hazardous option.

3. Engineering Controls

Engineering controls can reduce the probability of a hazardous event occurring in certain circumstances by:

· Preventing or isolating exposure to the hazard;

· Reducing the energy available; and

· Providing alternative means of interacting with the hazard.

· Preventing or isolating access to the hazard;

4. Administrative Controls

Administrative controls improve the ability of the worker to interact safely with a product, process, or material that presents a hazardous situation. Administrative controls can:

· Improve the ability to avoid harm;

· Reduce the frequency of exposure to a hazard; and

· Reduce the probability of a hazardous event occurring through controls.

5. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

PPE should be used when the previously mentioned controls cannot effectively reduce the risk. PPE includes anything designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against a hazard and should be used only as a last resort.

Why is occupational hygiene important?

Preventing Occupational Illness and Disease

Occupational hygiene plays a vital role in creating a healthy and safe work environment by controlling hazardous exposures.

Knowledge of hygiene issues and associated health hazards is important in preventing adverse health effects. This can be particularly important for exposures that are not necessarily associated with immediate symptoms, but can have detrimental long-term health effects.

For example, a worker in the construction industry may be exposed to silica while on the job. The worker does not experience any immediate symptoms and does not think their health is being compromised while at work. Years later, the worker experiences difficulty breathing and discovers they have silicosis, an irreversible and debilitating lung disease due to occupational silica exposure. Being aware of the potential exposures associated with your work and the substance specific requirements outlined in WorkSafeBC can prevent such an occurrence in your workplace.

Controlling Costs

A healthy and safe workplace can reduce the number of workers leaving employment due to illnesses, injury, or disease.

Demonstrating compliance with hygiene regulations applicable to your workplace can reduce the possibility of being shut down and/or given a fine or order by a regulator.

Controlling hazardous exposures minimizes the costs associated with workers compensation.

A healthy workforce also tends to be more productive and efficient.

It’s the Law!

As described by WorkSafeBC, “the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Regulation and Part 3 of the Workers Compensation Act contain legal requirements for workplace health and safety that must be met by all workplaces under the inspection jurisdiction of WorkSafeBC. Some sections of the Workers Compensation Act and OHS Regulation have associated policies and guidelines.” This includes occupational hygiene requirements that must be met.

What are some examples of occupational hygiene services that could benefit my organization?

There are a variety of hygiene services that may be beneficial to your workplace. Pacific Safety offers the following:

· Conducting hazardous materials assessments (asbestos and lead)

· Conducting noise surveys

· Writing exposure control plans

· Performing respirator fit-testing (qualitative or quantitative)

· Conducting exposure assessments

· Evaluating effectiveness of controls and providing recommendations

· Conducting ergonomic assessments

…and much more!

If you are interested in discussing hygiene services for your organization, please contact Pacific Safety at info@pacificsafety.ca or call us at 604-278-3512.

Posted in: Blog

Mental Health and Safety in the Workplace

Date: June 30th, 2017

There has been an increasing emphasis put on mental health and safety in the workplace in recent years. As a result, the demand for companies being held accountable for providing a mentally healthy and safe workplace has also increased.  The expanded view of not just addressing physical injuries but mental “injuries” as well has resulted in addressing hazards such as work place violence, bullying and mental stress. Legal actions are increasingly being taken in major areas of law, which includes health and safety and human rights law.

Quick Facts from the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC):

• Each week, 500,000 Canadians are unable to work due to mental health problems.
• The total cost from mental health problems to the Canadian economy exceeds $50 billion annually—nearly $1,400 for every person living in Canada.
• In 2011, mental health problems and illnesses among working adults in Canada cost employers more than $6 billion in lost productivity from absenteeism, presenteeism and turnover.
• Awards for damages caused by mental injuries at work have increased 700% in recent years
• In Canada alone, mental health issues and illnesses account for more than one third of disability claims and two-thirds of disability costs

Where to start?

Employers can face difficulties figuring out where to begin or where to invest the limited resources they have to combat the complex issue of mental health and safety. Having a standardized framework can help with that so they know what they are doing is right, and that it works for their organization.

However, mental health and safety can be challenging due to the real-world situations of demanding working conditions, diverse stakeholders that are involved, and the various ways people interact with each other.

There can be a fear from employers that implementing stringent workplace violence or harassment initiatives will hamper their ability to discipline workers, manage the workplace, and remain financially stable.

All of this was taken into consideration when developing and implementing standards to help Canadian organizations with these problems.

Creating best practice approaches in Canada

Initially launched in January 2013, the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Z1003 Standard) is a voluntary standard that includes tools and resources to help organizations create a framework for promoting mental health and preventing psychological harm at work. The standard is similar in approach to other management standards that have a Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) approach.

The goal was to be on the frontier of addressing mental health in the workplace. The standard is receiving recognition as a global first and has received worldwide recognition from other bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for being the first of its kind.

Since the release of the standard, the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) recently released their findings of its three-year Case Study Research Project, which followed 40 organizations from various industries and sectors that implemented the Standard.

The result of the study revealed that participating organizations report that the guidelines can help:

• Productivity
• Financial Performance
• Risk Management
• Recruitment and Retention

Is the standard for everyone?

Working Canadians spend 60 percent of their waking hours at work.  Such a major component of a person’s day can obviously have a large impact on a person’s wellbeing.  Workplaces can play an essential role in fostering positive mental health for all employees. Also, workplaces can be stressful environments that can negatively impact mental health.

Many organizations have a bullying and harassment and/or violence in the workplace program including a policy in place. However, even the existence of a harassment or violence policy which the employer has communicated to employees may not be good enough.  A framework of engagement, education, review, and monitoring is essential to breathe life into the policies. Employers have a legal duty to maintain a physically safe workplace in addition to a mentally safe workplace. Overall, implementing the standard hopes to create a framework or safety management system (SMS) that can help organizations identify specific hazards relevant to mental stressors to workers, and concentrate on preventing these areas of concerns.

You are able to download the national standard for free and receive more information from the following link: https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/national-standard

If you would be interested in discussing implementing a mental health in the workplace program, please contact Pacific Safety at info@pacificsafety.ca or call us on 604-278-3512

Posted in: Blog

Gauging Success in Safety

Date: May 31st, 2017

On April 28th many workplaces held ceremonies for Day of Mourning commemorating workers who were fatally injured in the workplace. Less than one month later yet another worker has lost his life at work in BC. A construction worker was thrown from his cab recently as his equipment rolled down a slope, unfortunately the worker suffered fatal injuries. Based on statistics in BC, we can expect that an average of three workers a week may lose their lives in the workplace each year.

These occurrences are tragic, and it is easy for many of us to look at them and think about where the shortcomings may have been, and consider what we might have done differently. For some of us, these tragic incidents may actually serve as a beacon that we need to reconsider our own H&S programs, and the safety of our workers. There may be some amendments to policies, programs, possibly renewed initiatives, and maybe even some cultural change.

Gauging Success

One health and safety challenge many organizations face is the difficulty in gauging H&S success.  How well have we done our jobs?  How do we know that the actions we just took prevented a significant injury, or prevented an incident such as the one that occurred this month? The results and benefits for doing something right, are often more difficult to gauge and recognize, and less tangible than the outcomes, and consequences of things going wrong.  When looking at safety culture in the workplace, we try hard not to get things wrong, but how do we gauge degrees of success, and know we’re doing it right, without the contrasting degrees of failure?

Focus on What’s Right

Rather than focus on managing safety through the relatively easy and reactive approach of looking at things that didn’t go as planned when they occur (such as near misses, failed controls, and injuries), focusing daily on the things that are going well, and are getting done can be significantly more effective.  Setting frequent targets combined with a daily proactive checklist will set up a monitoring program that can report on the frequency, and quality with which the targets are met. Some examples of proactive, leading aspects of workplace safety that can be monitored include:

• Toolbox talks
• Safety shares
• Equipment inspections
• Hazard assessments
• Hazard corrections
• Lockout and Tagout records
• Site inspections

Monitoring proactive health and safety activities can have a number of impacts:

• Identifying opportunities for improvement and correction can address concerns before they go wrong
• Over time, trends can be identified that show where the most likely areas of non-compliance may exist, allowing additional resource to correct those areas, and potential root causes
• Using a checklist allows for the recognition and monitoring of the things that are going well which can be as important or more important than identifying areas that aren’t performing ideally

Shifting Concept of Failure

Over time, and with the organizations full support and buy in, we have seen clients shift the concept of failure from relatively uncommon singular and significant failures (such as injuries, and major loss type incidents) and the concept that we’re successful if these aren’t occurring, to one that monitors more frequent minor safety deviations that haven’t met the organizations expectations.

A stronger focus can be put on the successes that the organization has achieved, with these many minor failures presenting many opportunities for minor corrections that can be corrected to create future success, and demonstrating that the organization is achieving success on a weekly or monthly basis, or at a minimum has identified many opportunities for improvement which can also be deemed a success (providing the improvements are put in place).

This is a healthier, more proactive approach to managing the concept of success, and gauging success, over reactively responding to failures.  It’s a shift in culture that requires significant support from management, but that can have significant impacts on the organizations view of success and failure in safety, and how they manage both.

Posted in: Blog