EH&S Insider Blog

As COVID-19 continues to work its way through the population, OSHA has issued new safety protocols for workplaces to better address the issue and help protect employees, contractors and visitors. This guidance was issued on January 29, 2021, and it offers details to supplement what many employers are already been doing. 

Kata is a Japanese term referring to structure or routine and its purpose is ongoing improvement: following the routine is a practice and it allows you to get better at whatever it is you're doing. When applied to business, it's divided into the improvement kata, which is the four steps your organization can follow to make improvements and the coaching kata, which is the steps taken by leadership to help employees implement the improvement kata.

How Does the EMR Fit Into the Calculation of Workers' Compensation Premiums? The EMR is determined via a standard formula that considers company size, company class codes and the cost, frequency and duration of prior claims. Class codes associate the company with similar companies within an industry. Class codes come from the NCCI, if the company is within one of the 39 states that use the NCCI standards. 

What is OSHA: Topic 4 - What do the OSHA Standards say?  A. Types of Standards Now, let’s talk briefly about the OSHA standards. OSHA standards fall into four categories: General Industry, Construction, Maritime, and Agriculture.

Near Miss Reporting - the Achilles Heel of the Safety Program  A near miss is a narrowly-avoided accident. Though it didn't result in injury or property damage, it may have if circumstances had been slightly different. According to OSHA, these close calls should be reported and investigated. Unfortunately, employees (and managers) often avoid reporting for a variety of reasons. They may feel pressured by their co-workers to keep working or they're afraid they'll be blamed for the close call if they mention it to their superiors. A difficult, complicated reporting process will also discourage people from reporting near misses.