DESIGN FOR OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY:CONTROLLING WORKPLACE HAZARDS

CONTROLLING WORKPLACE HAZARDS

With the workplace hazards identiﬁed and deﬁned, the next logical step is to eliminate or control them. Historically, there have been two predominant concepts about hazard controls. The ﬁrst concept is to think of hazard control as a hierarchy of methods of control. In the hierarchy, the best control method is to eliminate the hazard through redesign or substitution. If elimination or substitution cannot be achieved, then the next-best approach is to block employee access to the hazard. Finally, if blocking cannot be achieved, then a last approach would be to warn the employees of the hazard and train them how to avoid the hazard.

A second way to conceptualize hazard control is in terms of the type of control: engineering controls, human factors controls, and organizational controls. Engineering controls include modifying the technology, workstation, tools, environment, or other physical aspects of work to eliminate, re- move, substitute, or block access to the hazard.

Human factors controls deal with ﬁtting the work activity to the employee’s capabilities. Orga- nizational controls involve things such as improving work procedures and practices, providing train- ing, rotating employees to reduce the amount of exposure, and providing rest breaks designed to reduce the impact of hazards. All of these types of controls are not mutually exclusive and should be used together to achieve hazard reductions.

Engineering Controls

It would seem that the simplest way to deal with a hazard would be to get rid of it. This can be accomplished by redesigning a product, tool, machine, process, or environment or through substitution of a nonhazardous or less hazardous material or machine. For example, the loading of a mechanical punch press can be accomplished by placing a part directly onto the die with the employee’s hand, which puts the hand directly into the point of operation. If the press should inadvertently cycle, the employee could injure his or her hand. To eliminate this hazard, a ﬁxture can be designed so that the employee can place the part onto the ﬁxture and then slide the ﬁxture with the part into the point of operation. Thus, the ﬁxture and not the employee’s hand goes into the point of operation. This redesign removes the hand from the hazardous area of the machine. Likewise, a barrier guard could be put over the point of operation so that the employee’s hand could not ﬁt into the danger zone. This will be discussed in the next paragraph. Another example is substituting a less hazardous chem- ical for a more hazardous chemical, thereby reducing the extent of risk or the level of exposure.

The second class of engineering interventions is blocking employee access to the hazard. This can be achieved by putting up a barrier that keeps the employee from entering a hazardous area. The best example of this is fencing off an area such as high-voltage transformers. With this type of intervention, the hazard remains but access to the hazard is limited. However, often the hazardous area must be accessed for maintenance or other reasons. In this case, there are often secondary hazard controls to protect those who cross the barrier. For example, robots usually have a barrier around them to keep employees outside of their arc of swing so that they do not inadvertently come into contact with the robot’s arm. But when the robot has to be programmed or maintained, an employee has to go across the barrier to access the robot. A secondary control is to have the robot automatically shut down when the barrier is breached. This is a form of interlock that keeps the hazard inactive while employees are present in the danger zone. In the case of many hazards, such as the high- voltage transformer, it may not be possible to have a secondary hazard control. Then we must rely on the knowledge, skills, and good sense of the employee and / or the person breaching the barrier. These human factor controls will be discussed below.

Containment is a form of a barrier guard that is used primarily with very dangerous chemical and physical hazards. An example is the ionizing radiation from a nuclear reactor. This radiation at the core of the reactor is restrained from leaving the reactor by lead-lined walls, but if leakage should occur through the walls, a back-up barrier contains the leakage. In the case of a closed system, the employee never comes in contact with the source (such as the reactor core) of the hazard. The system is designed through automation to protect the employee from the hazard source. Many chemical plants use the concept of a closed system of containment. The only time an employee would contact these speciﬁc deadly hazards would be in the case of a disaster in which the containment devices failed.

Another form of barrier control that looks something like a secondary hazard control is a guard, which is used to cover moving parts that are accessible by the employees—for example, inrunning nip points on a machine. Such guards are most often ﬁxed and cannot be removed except for main- tenance. Sometimes the guard needs to be moved to access the product. For example, when a power press is activated, there is a hazard at the point of operation. When the ram is activated, guards are engaged that prohibit an employee’s contact with the die. When the ram is at rest, the guard can be lifted to access the product. If the guard is lifted, an interlock prohibits the ram from being activated. In this situation, there is a barrier to keep the employee from the area of the hazard only when the hazard is present. The guard allows access to the area of the hazard for loading, unloading, and other job operations that can be carried out without activation. But when the machine energy is activated, the guard moves into place to block the employee from access to the site of the action. In the case of the robot, the hazard area is quite large and a perimeter barrier is used; but in the case of a mechanical press, the hazard area is limited to the point of operation, which is quite small.

Yet another engineering control that is important for dealing with workplace hazards is the active removal of the hazard before it contacts the employee during the work process. An example is a local scavenger ventilation system that sucks the fumes produced by an operation such as spot welding or laser surgery away from the employees. This exhausts the fumes into the air outside of the plant (surgery room) and away from the employees. The ventilation systems must comply with federal, state, and local regulations in design and in the level of emissions into the environment. Thus, the fumes may need to be scrubbed clean by a ﬁlter before being released into the open environment. A related ventilation approach is to dilute the extent of employee exposure to airborne contaminants by bringing in more fresh air from outside the plant on a regular basis. The fresh air dilutes the concentration of the contaminant to which the employee is exposed to a level that is below the threshold of dangerous exposure. The effectiveness of this approach is veriﬁed by measuring the ambient air level of contamination and employee exposure levels on a regular basis. When new materials or chemicals are introduced into the work process or when other new airborne exposures are introduced into the plant, the adequacy of the ventilation dilution approach to provide safe levels of exposure(s) must be reveriﬁed. (See Hagopian and Bastress 1976 for recommendations for ven- tilation guidelines.)

When guarding or removal systems (e.g., saw guards, scavenger and area ventilation) cannot provide adequate employee protection, then personal protective equipment (PPE) must be worn by the employees (safety glasses, respirator). Because it relies on compliance by the employees, this is not a preferred method of control. A cardinal rule of safety and health engineering is that the primary method of controlling hazards is through engineering controls. Human factors controls are to be used primarily when engineering controls are not practical, feasible, solely effective in hazard control, or cost effective. It is recognized that human factor controls are often necessary as adjuncts (supple- ments) to engineering controls and in many instances are the only feasible and effective controls.

Human Factors Controls

In the traditional scheme of hazard control, there are two elements of human factors considerations for controlling hazards: warning and training. These can also be conceptualized as informing em- ployees about hazards and promoting safe and healthful employee behavior. Cohen and Colligan (1998) conducted a literature review of safety training effectiveness studies and found that occupa- tional safety and health training was effective in reducing employee hazard risks and injuries.

Informing

Informing employees about workplace hazards has three aspects: the right to know, warnings, and instructions. Regarding the right to know, federal safety and health regulations and many state and local regulations (ordinances) specify that an employer has the obligation to inform employees of hazardous workplace exposures to chemicals, materials, or physical agents that are known to cause harm. The local requirements of reporting vary and employers must be aware of the reporting re- quirements in the areas where they have facilities. Generally, an employer must provide information on the name of the hazard, its potential health effects, exposure levels that produce adverse health effects, and the typical kinds of exposures encountered in the plant. In addition, if employees are exposed to a toxic agent, information about ﬁrst aid and treatment should be available. For each chemical or material or physical agent classiﬁed as toxic by OSHA, employers are required to main- tain a standard data sheet that provides detailed information on its toxicity, control measures, and standard operating procedures (SOPS) for using the product. A list of hazardous chemicals, materials, and physical agents is available from your local OSHA ofﬁce or the OSHA website (http: / / www.osha.gov). These standard data sheets (some are referred to as material safety data sheets [MSDS]) must be supplied to purchasers by the manufacturer who sells the product. These data sheets must be shared by employers with employees who are exposed to the speciﬁc hazardous products, and must be available at the plant (location) as an information resource in case of an exposure or emergency. The motivation behind the right-to-know concept is that employees have a basic right to knowledge about their workplace exposures and that informed employees will make better choices and use better judgment when they know they are working with hazardous materials.

Warnings are used to convey the message of extreme danger. They are designed to catch the attention of the employee, inform the employee of a hazard, and instruct him or her in how to avoid the hazard. The OSHA regulations require that workplace warnings meet the appropriate ANSI stan- dards, including Z35.1-1972 speciﬁcations for accident prevention signs; Z35.4-1973 speciﬁcations for informational signs complementary to ANSI Z35.1-1972; and ANSI Z53.1-1971 safety color code for marking physical hazards. These ANSI standards were revised in 1991 as Z535.1-535.4. Warnings are primarily visual but can also be auditory, as in the case of a ﬁre alarm. Warnings use sensory techniques that capture the attention of the employee. For instance, the use of the color red has a cultural identiﬁcation with danger. The use of loud, discontinuous noise is culturally associated with emergency situations and can serve as a warning. After catching attention, the warning must provide information about the nature of the hazard. What is the hazard and what will it do to you? This provides the employee with an opportunity to assess the risk of ignoring the warning. Finally, the warning should provide some information about speciﬁc actions to take to avoid the hazard, such as ‘‘Stay clear of the boom’’ or ‘‘Stand back 50 feet from the crane’’ or ‘‘Stay away from this area.’’

Developing good warnings requires following the ANSI standards, using the results of current scientiﬁc studies and good judgment. Lehto and Miller (1986) wrote a book on warnings, and Lehto and Papastavrou (1993) deﬁne critical issues in the use and application of warnings. Laughery and Wogalter (1997) deﬁne the human factors aspects of warnings and risk perception and considerations for designing warnings. Peters (1997) discusses the critical aspects of technical communications that need to be considered from both human factors and legal perspectives. Considerations such as the level of employee’s word comprehension, the placement of the warning, environmental distortions, wording of instructions, and employee sensory overload, just to name a few, must be taken into account for proper warning design and use. Even when good warnings are designed, their ability to inﬂuence employee behavior varies widely. Even so, the regulations require their use and they do provide the employee an opportunity to make a choice. Warnings should never be used in place of engineering controls. Warnings always serve as an adjunct to other means of hazard control.

Instructions provide direction to employees that will help them to avoid or deal more effectively with hazards. They are the behavioral model that can be followed to ensure safety. The basis of good instructions is the job analysis, which provides detailed information on the job tasks, environment, tools, and materials used. The job analysis will identify high-risk situations. Based on veriﬁcation of the information in the job analysis, a set of instructions on how to avoid hazardous situations can be developed. The implementation of such instructions as employee behavior will be covered in the next section under training and safe behavior improvement.

Promoting Safe and Healthful Behavior

There are four basic human factors approaches that can be used in concert to inﬂuence employee behavior to control workplace hazards:

1. Applying methods of workplace and job design to provide working situations that capitalize on worker skills

2. Designing organizational structures that encourage healthy and safe working behavior

3. Training workers in the recognition of hazards and proper work behavior(s) for dealing with these hazards

4. Improving worker health and safety behavior through work practices improvement

Each of these approaches is based on certain principles that can enhance effective safety performance.

Workplace and Job Design

The sensory environment in which job tasks are carried out inﬂuences worker perceptual capabilities to detect hazards and respond to them. Being able to see or smell a hazard is an important prerequisite in dealing with it; therefore, workplaces have to provide a proper workplace sensory environment for hazard detection. This means proper illumination and noise control and adequate ventilation.

There is some evidence that appropriate illumination levels can produce signiﬁcant reductions in accident rate (McCormick 1976). The environment can inﬂuence a worker’s ability to perceive visual and auditory warnings such as signs or signals. To ensure the effectiveness of warnings, they should be highlighted. For visual signals, use the colors deﬁned in the ANSI standard (Z535.1, ANSI 1991) and heightened brightness. For auditory signals, use changes in loudness, frequency, pitch, and phas- ing.

Work environments that are typically very loud and do not afford normal conversation can limit the extent of information exchange and may even increase the risk of occupational injury (Barreto et al. 1997). In such environments, visual signs are a preferred method for providing safety infor- mation. However, in most situations of extreme danger, an auditory warning signal is preferred because it attracts attention more quickly and thus provides for a quicker worker response. In general, warning signals should quickly attract attention, be easy to interpret, and provide information about the nature of the hazard.

Proper machinery layout, use, and design should be a part of good safety. Work areas should be designed to allow for trafﬁc ﬂow in a structured manner in terms of the type of trafﬁc, the volume of trafﬁc, and the direction of ﬂow. The trafﬁc ﬂow process should support the natural progression

of product manufacture and / or assembly. This should eliminate unnecessary trafﬁc and minimize the complexity and volume of trafﬁc. There should be clearly delineated paths for trafﬁc to use and signs giving directions on appropriate trafﬁc patterns and ﬂow.

Work areas should be designed to provide workers with room to move about in performing tasks without having to assume awkward postures or come into inadvertent contact with machinery. Task- analysis procedures can determine the most economical and safest product-movement patterns and should serve as the primary basis for determining layout of machinery, work areas, trafﬁc ﬂow, and storage for each workstation.

Equipment must conform to principles of proper engineering design so that the controls that activate the machine, the displays that provide feedback of machine action, and the safeguards to protect workers from the action of the machine are compliant with worker skills and expectations. The action of the machine must be compliant with the action of the controls in temporal, spatial, and force characteristics.

The layout of controls on a machine is very important for proper machinery operation, especially in an emergency. In general, controls can be arranged on the basis of (1) their sequence of use, (2) common functions, (3) frequency of use, and (4) relative importance. Any arrangement should take into consideration (1) the ease of access, (2) the ease of discrimination, and (3) safety considerations such as accidental activation. The use of a sequence arrangement of controls is often preferred because it ensures smooth, continuous movements throughout the work operation. Generally, to enhance spatial compliance, the pattern of use of controls should sequence from left to right and from top to bottom. Sometimes controls are more effective when they are grouped by common functions. Often controls are clustered by common functions that can be used in sequence so that a combination of approaches is used.

To prevent unintentional activation of controls, the following steps can be taken: (1) recess the control, (2) isolate the control to an area on the control panel where it will be hard to trip uninten- tionally, (3) provide protective coverings over the control, (4) provide lock-out of the control so that it cannot be tripped unless unlocked, (5) increase the force necessary to trip the control so that extra effort is necessary and / or (6) require a speciﬁc sequence of control actions such that one unintentional action does not activate the machinery.

A major deﬁciency in machinery design is the lack of adequate feedback to the machine operator about the machine action, especially at the point of operation. Such feedback is often difﬁcult to provide because there typically are no sensors at the point of operation (or other areas) to determine when such action has taken place. However, an operator should have some information about the results of the actuation of controls to be able to perform effectively. Operators may commit unsafe behaviors to gain some feedback about the machine’s performance as the machine is operating that may put them in contact with the point of operation. To avoid this, machinery design should include feedback of operation. The more closely this feedback reﬂects the timing and action of the machinery, the greater the amount of control that can be exercised by the operator. The feedback should be displayed in a convenient location for the operator at a distance that allows for easy readability.

Work task design is a consideration for controlling safety hazards. Tasks that cause employees to become fatigued or stressed can contribute to exposures and accidents. Task design has to be based on considerations that will enhance employer attention and motivation. Thus, work tasks should be meaningful in terms of the breadth of content of the work that will eliminate boredom and enhance the employee’s mental state. Work tasks should be under the control of the employees, and machine- paced operations should be avoided. Tasks should not be repetitious. This last requirement is some- times hard to achieve. When work tasks have to be repeated often, providing the employee with some control over the pacing of the task reduces stress associated with such repetition. Because boredom is also a consideration in repetitious tasks, employee attention can be enhanced by providing frequent breaks from the repetitious activity to do alternative tasks or take a rest. Alternative tasks enlarge the job and enhance the breadth of work content and employee skills.

The question of the most appropriate work schedule is a difﬁcult matter. There is evidence that rotating-shift systems produce more occupational injuries than ﬁxed-shift schedules (Smith et al. 1982). This implies that ﬁxed schedules are more advantageous for injury control. However, for many younger workers (without seniority and thus often relegated to afternoon and night shifts) this may produce psychosocial problems related to family responsibilities and entertainment needs, and there- fore lead to stress. Because stress can increase illness and injury potential, the gain from the ﬁxed- shift systems may be negated by stress. This suggests that one fruitful approach may be to go to ﬁxed shifts with volunteers working the nonday schedules. Such an approach provides enhanced biological conditions and fewer psychosocial problems.

Overtime work should be avoided because of fatigue and stress considerations. It is preferable to have a second shift of workers than to overtax the physical and psychological capabilities of em- ployees. Since a second shift may not be economically feasible, some considerations need to be given for determining appropriate amounts of overtime. This is a judgmental determination since there is inadequate research evidence on which to base a deﬁnitive answer. It is reasonable that job tasks that create high levels of physical fatigue and / or psychological stress should not be performed more than 10 hours in one day and 50 hours in one week. Jobs that are less fatiguing and stressful can probably be safely performed for up to 12 hours per day. There is some evidence that working more than 50 hours per week can increase the risk of coronary heart disease (Breslow and Buell 1960; Russek and Zohman 1958), and therefore working beyond 50 hours per week for extended periods should be avoided.

Organizational Design

Organizational policies and practices can have a profound inﬂuence on a company’s health and safety record and the safety performance of its employees. To promote health and safety, organizational policies and practices should demonstrate that safety is an important organizational objective. The ﬁrst step in this process is to establish a written organizational policy statement on health and safety. This should be followed up with written procedures to implement the policy. Such a formalized structure is the foundation on which all health and safety activities in the company are built. It provides the legitimate basis for undertaking health- and safety-related actions and curtails the fre- quent arguments among various levels of management about what constitutes acceptable activities. Such a policy statement also alerts employees to the importance of health and safety.

For employees, the policy statement is the declaration of an intent to achieve a goal. However, employees are skeptical of bureaucratic policies and look for more solid evidence of management commitment. Thus, the timing and sequence of health- and safety-related decisions demonstrate how the policy will be implemented and the importance of health and safety considerations. A health and safety policy with no follow-through is worthless and in fact may be damaging to employee morale by showing employees a lack of management commitment. This can backﬁre and can lead to poor employee safety attitudes and behaviors. Thus, an employer has to put the ‘‘money where the mouth is’’ to demonstrate commitment. If not, a policy is an empty promise.

Since physical conditions are the most obvious health and safety hazards, it is important that they be dealt with quickly to demonstrate management commitment. Relations with local, state, and federal health and safety agencies reﬂect on management commitment to health and safety. Companies that have written safety policies and guidelines with adequate follow-through but are constantly at odds with government health and safety ofﬁcials are sending a confusing message to their employees. It is important to have a good public image and good public relations with government agencies, even through there may be speciﬁc instances of disagreement and even hostility. This positive public image will enhance employee attitudes and send a consistent message to employees about the importance of health and safety.

In this regard, organizations must ensure an adequate ﬂow of information in the organization. The ﬂow must be bidirectional, that is, upward as well as downward. One approach for dealing with safety communications is to establish communication networks. These are formal structures to ensure that information gets to the people who need to know the message(s) in a timely way. These networks are designed to control the amount of information ﬂow to guard against information overload, mis- information, or a lack of needed information. Such networks have to be tailored to the speciﬁc needs of an organization. They are vital for hazard awareness and general health and safety information.

For instance, in a multishift plant, information on a critical hazardous condition can be passed from shift to shift so that workers can be alerted to the hazard. Without a communication network, this vital information may not get to all affected employees and an avoidable exposure or accident could occur.

Organizational decision making is an important motivational tool for enhancing employee health and safety performance. Decisions about work task organization, work methods, and assignments should be delegated to the lowest level in the organization at which they can be logically made; that is, they should be made at the point of action. This approach has a number of beneﬁts. For example, this level in the organization has the greatest knowledge of the work processes and operations and of their associated hazards. Such knowledge can lead to better decisions about hazard control. Diverse input to decision making from lower levels up to higher levels makes for better decisions as there are more options to work with. Additionally, this spreading of responsibility by having people par- ticipate in the inputs to decision making promotes employee and line supervisor consideration of safety and health issues. Such participation has been shown to be a motivator and to enhance job satisfaction (French 1963; Korunka et al. 1993; Lawler 1986). It also gives employees greater control over their work tasks and a greater acceptance of the decisions concerning hazard control due to the shared responsibility. All of this leads to decreased stress and increased compliance with safe be- havior(s).

Organizations have an obligation to increase company health and safety by using modern per- sonnel practices. These include appropriate selection and placement approaches, skills training, pro- motion practices, compensation packages, and employee-assistance programs. For safety purposes, the matching of employee skills and needs to job task requirements is an important consideration. It is inappropriate to place employees at job tasks for which they lack the proper skills or capacity. This will increase illness and injury risk and job stress. Selection procedures must be established to obtain a properly skilled workforce. When a skilled worker is not available, training must be under- taken to increase skill levels to the proper level before a task is undertaken. This assumes that the employer has carried out a job task analysis and knows the job skills that are required. It also assumes that the employer has devised a way to test for the required skills. Once these two conditions have been met, the employer can improve the ﬁt between employee skills and job task requirements through proper selection, placement, and training. Many union contracts require that employees with seniority be given ﬁrst consideration for promotions. Such consideration is in keeping with this approach as long as the worker has the appropriate skills to do the job task or the aptitude to be trained to attain the necessary skills. If a person does not have the necessary knowledge and skills or cannot be adequately trained, there is good reason to exclude that individual from a job regardless of seniority.

Safety Training

Training workers to improve their skills and recognize hazardous conditions is a primary means for reducing exposures and accidents. Cohen and Colligan (1998) found that safety and health training was effective in reducing employee risk. Training can be deﬁned as a systematic acquisition of knowledge, concepts, or skills that can lead to improved performance or behavior. Eckstrand (1964) deﬁned seven basic steps in training: (1) deﬁning the training objectives, (2) developing criteria measures for evaluating the training process and outcomes, (3) developing or deriving the content and materials to be learned, (4) designing the techniques to be used to teach the content, (5) inte- grating the learners and the training program to achieve learning, (6) evaluating the extent of learning, and (7) modifying the training process to improve learner comprehension and retention of the content. These steps provide the foundation for the application of basic guidelines that can be used for designing the training content, and integrating the content and the learner.

In deﬁning training objectives, two levels can be established: global and speciﬁc. The global objectives are the end goals that are to be met by the training program. For instance, a global objective might be the reduction of eye injuries by 50%. The speciﬁc objectives are those that are particular to each segment of the training program, including the achievements to be reached by the completion of each segment. A speciﬁc objective might be the ability to recognize eye-injury hazards by all employees by the end of the hazard-education segment. A basis for deﬁning training objectives is the assessment of company safety problem areas. This can be done using hazard-identiﬁcation meth- ods such as injury statistics, inspections, and hazard surveys. Problems should be identiﬁed, ranked in importance, and then used to deﬁne objectives.

To determine the success of the training process, criteria for evaluation need to be established. Hazard-identiﬁcation measures can be used to determine overall effectiveness. Thus, global objectives can be veriﬁed by determining a reduction in injury incidence (such as eye injuries) or the elimination of a substantial number of eye hazards. However, it is necessary to have more sensitive measures of evaluation that can be used during the course of training to assess the effectiveness of speciﬁc aspects of the training program. This helps to determine the need to redirect speciﬁc training segments if they prove to be ineffective. Speciﬁc objectives can be examined through the use of evaluation tools. For instance, to evaluate the ability of workers to recognize eye hazards, a written or oral examination can be used. Hazards that are not recognized can be emphasized in subsequent training and retraining.

The content of the training program should be developed based on the learners’ knowledge level, current skills, and aptitudes. The training content should be ﬂexible enough to allow for individual differences in aptitudes, skills, and knowledge, as well as for individualized rates of learning. The training content should allow all learners to achieve a minimally acceptable level of health and safety knowledge and competence by the end of training. The speciﬁcs of the content deal with the skills to be learned and the hazards to be recognized and controlled.

There are various techniques that can be used to train workers. Traditionally, on-the-job training (OJT) has been emphasized to teach workers job skills and health and safety considerations. The effectiveness of such training will be inﬂuenced by the skill of the supervisor or lead worker in imparting knowledge and technique as well as his or her motivation to successfully train the worker. First-line supervisors and lead workers are not educated to be trainers and may lack the skills and motivation to do the best job. Therefore, OJT has not always been successful as the sole safety training method. Since the purpose of a safety training program is to impart knowledge and teach skills, it is important to provide both classroom experiences to gain knowledge and OJT to attain skills.

Classroom training is used to teach concepts and improve knowledge and should be carried out in small groups (not to exceed 15 employees). A small group allows for the type of instructor–student interaction needed to monitor class progress, provide proper motivation and determine each learner’s comprehension level. Classroom training should be given in an area free of distractions to allow learners to concentrate on the subject matter. Training sessions should not exceed 30 minutes, after which workers can return to their regular duties. There should be liberal use of visual aids to increase comprehension and make the training more concrete and identiﬁable to the learners. In addition, written materials should be provided that can be taken from the training session for study or reference away from the classroom.

For OJT the major emphasis should be on enhancing skills through observation and practice. Key workers with exceptional skills can be used as role models and mentors. Learners can observe these key workers and pick up tips from them. They then can practice what they have learned under the direction of the key workers to increase their skill, obtain feedback on their technique, and be motivated to improve.

Once the learner and the training program have been integrated, it will be necessary to evaluate the extent of learning. This can be done by testing learner knowledge and skills. Such testing should be done frequently throughout the training process to provide the learners with performance feedback and allow for program redirection as needed. Knowledge is best tested by written examinations that test acquisition of facts and concepts. Pictorial examinations (using pictures or slides of working conditions) can be used to determine hazard recognition ability. Oral questioning on a frequent basis can provide the instructor with feedback on the class comprehension of materials being presented, but should not be used for individual learner evaluation, since some learners may not be highly verbal and could be demotivated by being asked to recite. Skills testing should take place in the work area under conditions that control hazard exposures. Skills can be observed during practice sessions to determine progress under low-stress conditions.

The ﬁnal stage in a training program, the success of the program having been determined, is to make modiﬁcations to improve the learning process. Such modiﬁcations should be done on a con- tinuous basis as feedback on learner performance is acquired. In addition, at the end of the program it is necessary to determine whether the company objectives have been met. If so, should the objec- tives be modiﬁed? The answers to these questions can lead to modiﬁcations in the training program.

Hazard Reduction through Improved Work Practices

A large number of the hazards in the workplace are produced by the interaction between employees and their tools and environment. These hazards cannot be completely controlled through hazard inspection and machine guarding. They can be controlled by increasing employee recognition of the hazards and by proper worker behavior. Such behavior may be an evasive action when a hazard occurs, or it may be the use of safe work procedures to ensure that hazards will not occur. There are very few hazard-control efforts that are not in some way dependent on employee behavior. Making employees aware of hazards is meaningless if they do not choose to do something about them. For example, when controlling chemical exposures, personal protective equipment is useless if it is not worn. Likewise, an inspection system is useless if hazards are not reported or not corrected when reported. Thus, taking positive action (behavior) is central to hazard control. It is often true that there are no ideal engineering control methods to deal with a certain hazard. In such a case, it is usually necessary to use proper work practices to avoid hazardous exposure when engineering controls are not feasible. Likewise, even when engineering control will work successfully it is necessary to have employees use good work practices to get the engineering controls to work properly.

Conard (1983) has deﬁned work practices as employee behaviors that can be simple or complex and that are related to reducing a hazardous situation in occupational activities. A series of steps can be used in developing and implementing work practices for eliminating occupational hazards:

1. The deﬁnition of hazardous work practices

2. The deﬁnition of new work practices to reduce the hazards

3. Training employees in the desired work practices

4. Testing the new work practices in the job setting

5. Installing the new work practices using motivators

6. Monitoring the effectiveness of the new work practices

7. Redeﬁning the new work practices

8. Maintaining proper employee habits regarding work practices

In deﬁning hazardous work practices, there are a number of sources of information that should be examined. Injury and accident reports such as the OSHA 301 Form provide information about the circumstances surrounding an injury. Often employee or management behaviors that contributed to the injury can be identiﬁed. Employees are a good source of information about workplace hazards. They can be asked to identify critical behaviors that may be important as hazard sources or hazard controls. First-line supervisors are also a good source of information because they are constantly observing employee behavior. All of these sources should be examined; however, the most important source of information is in directly observing employees at work.

There are a number of considerations when observing employee work behaviors. First, observation must be an organized proposition. Before undertaking observations, it is useful to interview employees and ﬁrst-line supervisors and examine injury records to develop a checklist of signiﬁcant behaviors to be observed. This should include hazardous behaviors as well as those that are used to enhance engineering control or directly control hazards. The checklist should identify the job task being observed, the types of behaviors being examined, their frequency of occurrence, and a time frame of their occurrence. The observations should be made at random times so that employees do not change their natural modes of behavior when observed. The time of observation should be long enough for a complete cycle of behaviors associated with a work task(s) of interest to be examined. Two or three repetitions of this cycle should be examined to determine consistency in behavior with an employee and among employees. Random times of recording behavior are most effective in obtaining accurate indications of typical behavior. The recorded behaviors can be analyzed by the frequency and pattern of their occurrence as well as their signiﬁcance for hazard control. Hot spots can be identiﬁed. All behaviors need to be grouped into categories in regard to hazard control efforts and then prioritized.

The next step is to deﬁne the proper work practices that need to be instilled to control the hazardous procedures observed. Sometimes the observations provide the basis for the good procedures that you want to implement. Often, however, new procedures need to be developed. There are four classes of work practices that should be considered: (1) hazard recognition and reporting, (2) house- keeping, (3) doing work tasks safely, and (4) emergency procedures. The recognition of workplace hazards requires that the employee be cognizant of hazardous conditions through training and edu- cation and that employees actively watch for these conditions. Knowledge is useless unless it is applied. These work practices ensure the application of knowledge and the reporting of observed hazards to fellow workers and supervisors. Housekeeping is a signiﬁcant consideration for two rea- sons. A clean working environment makes it easier to observe hazards. It is also a more motivating situation that enhances the use of other work practices.

The most critical set of work practices deals with carrying out work tasks safely through correct skill use and hazard-avoidance behaviors. This is where the action is between the employee and the environment, and it must receive emphasis in instilling proper work practices. Situations occur that are extremely hazardous and require the employee to get out of the work area or stay clear of the work area. These work practices are often life-saving procedures that need special consideration because they are used only under highly stressful conditions, such as emergencies.

Each of these areas needs to have work practices spelled out. These should be statements of the desired behaviors speciﬁed in concise, easily understandable language. Statements should typically be one sentence long and should never exceed three sentences. Details should be excluded unless they are critical to the proper application of the work practice. The desired work practices having been speciﬁed, employees should be given classroom and on-the-job training to teach them the work practices. Training approaches discussed earlier should be applied. This includes classroom training as well as an opportunity for employees to test the work practices in the work setting.

To ensure the sustained use of the learned work practices, it is important to motivate workers through the use of incentives. There are many types of incentives, including money, tokens, privileges, social rewards, recognition, feedback, participation, and any other factors that motivate employees, such as enriched job tasks. Positive incentives should be used to develop consistent work practice patterns.

Research has demonstrated that the use of ﬁnancial rewards in the form of increased hourly wage can have a beneﬁcial effect on employee safety behaviors and reduced hazard exposure. One study (Smith et al. 1983; Hopkins et al. 1986) evaluated the use of behavioral approaches for promoting employee use of safe work practices to reduce their exposure to styrene. The study was conducted in three plants and had three components: (1) the development and validation of safe work practices for working with styrene in reinforced ﬁberglass operations, (2) the development and implementation of an employee training program for learning the safe work practices, and (3) the development and testing of a motivational technique for enhancing continued employee use of the safe work practices. Forty-three work practices were extracted from information obtained from a literature search, walk- through plant survey, interviews with employees and plant managers, and input from recognized experts in industrial safety and hygiene. The work practices were pilot tested for their efﬁcacy in reducing styrene exposures. A majority of the work practices were found to be ineffective in reducing styrene exposures, and only those that were effective were incorporated into a worker training pro- gram.

The worker training program consisted of classroom instruction followed up with on-the-job application of the material learned in class. Nine videotapes were made to demonstrate the use of safe work practices. Basic information about each work practice and its usefulness was presented, followed by a demonstration of how to perform the work practice. Employees observed one videotape for 15 minutes per week for nine weeks. After each showing, a discussion session was held, followed up by on-the-job application of the work practice given by the research training instructor. Once training was completed, each employee was included in the motivational program. This program was based on a ﬁnancial reward of $10 per week for using the safe work practices. Observations of employee behavior were made by researchers four times daily on a random basis. These observations served as the basis for an employee’s receipt of the ﬁnancial reward.

The effectiveness of the training and motivational programs was measured by examining the changes in employee behavior from before the programs to the end of the study. Approximately 35% of the safe work practices were observed prior to training for the 41 employees studied in the three plants. At the end of the study, approximately 95% of the safe work practices were observed. The real signiﬁcance of this increased use of safe work practices lies in the effectiveness in reducing employee exposures to styrene. The results indicated a reduction in styrene exposure from before training to the end of the study of 36%, 80%, and 65% for each plant respectively. In a follow-up evaluation a few years after the behavioral management program was discontinued, it was found that approximately 90% of the safe work practices were still being used by the employees even in the absence of rewards. The study results demonstrated the effectiveness of behavioral techniques for increasing worker use of safe work practices, as well as the effectiveness of such usage in reducing employee exposures to workplace hazards.

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