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Tag: workplace safety

Crisis Management: Employees and COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

Published by Brett Holubeck on April 17, 2020
Image of a medical person to illustrate employees that are working through the COVID-19/Coronavirus crisis.
Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

Anyone that is working right now is aware of the coronavirus. It is all over the news and is impossible to avoid. Every day the death toll is updated, and more infections are found. Moreover, the news reports are saying that the US may face 18 months of rolling shutdowns. The reality is, businesses will be dealing with COVID-19 (the Coronavirus) for the foreseeable future.

Last week I gave some tips on managing remote employees in light of the COVID-19 crisis. This week I thought I would talk about managing and working with the employees that are on the front lines: the essential workers.

What is an Essential Worker?

Most states are following the guidelines from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) regarding what is and what is not an essential business. Some states have issued additional requirements on what is an essential business. Texas is following the “Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response” from the CISA also.

The CISA has several categories of essential workers by industry including 1) healthcare, 2) law enforcement, public safety, and other first responders, 3) food and agriculture, 4 energy, 5) water and wastewater, 6) transportation and logistics, 7) public works and infrastructure support services, 8) communications and information technology, 9) other community or government-based operations and essential functions, 10) critical manufacturing, 11) financial services, 12) chemical, 13) defense industrial base, 14) commercial facilities, 15) residential/shelter facilities and services, and 16) hygiene products and services. You can read more about whether a business essential here.

Basically, essential workers are the ones that are striving to keep the country running by curing people that are sick, providing food, manufacturing needed goods, and making sure that everything is continuing to operate in this crisis. They are still coming to work every day. They are the nurses working in the emergency rooms putting themselves at risk with people that may be affected with COVID-19, the grocery workers that are stocking the shelves and serving customers, the nursing home staff that are caring for patients, and the food processing workers that are continuing to make products. They are the millions of people that are fighting day in and day out to do their best to keep people safe, fed, and cared for.

What Are They Feeling?

Employees are stressed. Businesses are worried. For employees that are “essential employees” many are extremely concerned about getting sick. Some of them are getting their wills done in case they die from the coronavirus. They are facing their own mortality in this crisis. Many are worried about taking care of their kids. A few are not going home because they are afraid of spreading the disease. Some essential employees are worried about paying their bills.

How Can Companies Help Essential Workers?

Safety Comes First

Employers must take action to keep employees safe and show employees that their safety is important while the world is facing this crisis.  Some companies have already started to be sued by employees that have gotten COVID-19 at work and more lawsuits are sure to follow. There is a lot that employers can do to help prevent employees from getting sick and keep them safe.

  • Post the OSHA poster on COVID-19 in your workplace and follow the recommendations within (it is available here). You should also post information about washing hands around the facility.
  • Make efforts to obtain masks and other protective equipment. If you are able to obtain masks, then you should require employees to wear them. If you cannot obtain sufficient masks, then you should suggest employees wear masks or other cloth coverings that they bring from home if they are available.
  • Contact your worker’s compensation insurance provider to ensure that they are prepared to address any COVID-19 related claims in the workplace.
  • Follow all CDC recommendations to the extent possible at your operation
  • You should also follow guidance from OSHA regarding protecting employees.
  • Transition employees to remote work if possible. 
  • Clean and disinfect all surfaces that are touched by employees frequently (doorknobs, light switches, microwaves, coffee makers, keypads, and other flat surfaces).
  • Space out employees in areas like hallways and lunchrooms.

Employees need to actually see that you are doing these things to understand how their employer is engaging in crisis management. Now is the time to emphasize your open-door policy. Employers should hold meetings with small numbers of employees, provide memos, and post fliers to explain all of the steps that they are taking to care for their employees. Managers and supervisors should call employees that are working remotely and essential employees that are present to ask how they are doing. Managers should ask employees if there is anything the employees need to do their jobs. Companies must empower employees to bring problems to your attention. Any employee complaints should be taken very seriously, and immediate action should be taken, if possible, to remedy the problem. Employers should then follow-up with employees about the steps that were taken to correct the problem.

If Employees Walkout

Employees have a right to walk out because they are concerned about COVID-19 and their safety in the workplace. This action is a type of concerted action that is protected under Section 7 of the NLRA. Employees refusing to work because they believe that they are in danger are also protected under Section 13(a) of the OSH Act.

Employees should not be disciplined, terminated or threatened if they walk out. Employers should try to address any issues that the employees raise about their safety and take additional steps to ensure employees that they are doing their best to keep employees safe after a walkout occurs. The best thing that employers can do to prevent a walkout and address any fallout from one is to constantly communicate the steps that they are taking to keep employees safe and make adjustments as employees raise issues and as new guidance on keeping a safe workplace is released. Companies should follow all guidelines from the CDC and OSHA to ensure that they are doing all that they can do to keep employees safe.

Conclusion

Crisis management is different than the day-to-day operations of a company. This is the time when companies can either succeed or fail, when your employees will either believe that you care about them or not.  A good company will act because they care about employees. Employees recognize when an employer actually cares about them and this causes their morale to increase.

Employers have a great chance to build morale and better their company. Every business is unique, so every company needs to conduct its own assessment of its workplace and workforce to determine the best approach to take. The worst thing that companies can do is to keep working as if nothing has changed. We are in a crisis. COVID-19 (the coronavirus) has dramatically changed the workplace. All companies need to recognize that and take action.

The information provided in this blog is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, then you should speak with a lawyer about your specific issues. Every legal issue is unique. A lawyer can help you with your situation. Reading the blog, contacting me through the site, emailing me or commenting on a post does not create an attorney-client relationship between any reader and me.

The information provided is my own and does not reflect the opinion of my firm or anyone else.                                                                                                                                                                                    

How To Improve Workplace Safety

Published by Brett Holubeck on June 18, 2019
Photo of had hazards to demonstrate one of the most common tools to improve workplace safety.
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash

Workplace safety is critical. Every worker deserves to work in a job where their safety is the top priority even if all dangers cannot possibly be eliminated. Workplace injuries are, unfortunately, too common. For the office workers in Scranton, PA their safety, and let’s be honest, professional work environment is always in jeopardy- this includes their boss not taking safety training seriously, and worse, being the cause of the workplace injury in question. (And this isn’t even the time he hit Meredith with a car.) Although these are fictional characters, unfortunately these things do happen, and many times people don’t take workplace safety seriously enough.

There were approximately 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers in 2017. About 3% of workers suffered some sort of workplace injury or illness in 2017, and every 7 seconds a worker is injured on the job.

Moreover, 5,147 workers died on the job in 2017. On average there are more than 99 deaths per week or more than 14 deaths every day. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like too many to me.

Work injuries and deaths are also expensive. According to the National Safety Council, the total cost of all work injuries in 2017 was $161.5 billion dollars. The figure includes

wage and productivity losses of $50.7 billion, medical expenses of $34.3 billion and administrative expenses of $52.0 billion. This total also includes employers’ uninsured costs of $12.4 billion, including the value of time lost by workers other than those with disabling injuries who are directly or indirectly involved in injuries, and the cost of time required to investigate injuries, write up injury reports and so forth. The total also includes damage to motor vehicles in work-related injuries of $4.9 billion and fire losses of $7.3 billion.

The average cost of a work-related injury in 2017 was $39,000 and the cost per death was $1,150,000. These figures “include estimates of wage losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses and employer costs, but excludes property damage costs except to motor vehicles.”

Most importantly, a serious workplace injury or death changes someone’s life forever. No company can afford to ignore workplace safety. Fortunately, there are some basic things that every company can do to improve workplace safety.

Steps to Improve Workplace Safety

There are many steps that every company should take to improve the safety of their employees. Most of them can be accomplished with only some minor effort from the company and its managers, but they have a dramatic impact on the workplace safety.

1. Train Your Employees

Employees must be trained to recognize and to report safety violations even when they are the ones that committed the violation. Many companies will discipline employees that fail to report safety violations because the risks are too high for the company if a problem does arise. Some employees may be afraid to report on other employees for fear that they will be thought of as tattletales. Employees need to have regular trainings and meetings on safety to make them feel comfortable with reporting safety violations and to understand the penalty and potential risk to themselves and their fellow employees for failing to report hazards and other safety issues.

The easiest way to train employees is through daily morning meetings where a safety or other topic is discussed for 5 minutes, implementing thorough onboarding training, and holding periodic extended trainings.

Covered topics at any facility should include:

  • Sexual harassment
  • Bullying
  • Workplace violence
  • Drug and alcohol use and recognition of the symptoms of use
  • Proper use of equipment
  • How to report injuries

2. Train Safety Coordinators, Managers, and other Individuals that are Specifically Responsible for Safety

Managers and safety coordinators need to be aware of the safety rules and procedures and be prepared to enforce them. These individuals need extra training to recognize and respond to safety issues, spot improper use of the equipment that their employees use, recognize alcohol and drug impairment, and know what to do when someone reports a safety issue.

3. Conduct Regular Inspections of the Worksite for Safety Issues

Employers, even those without a dedicated safety professional, should conduct regular inspections of their workplace. Every workplace should create a checklist of areas and equipment to inspect on a regular basis.

There are even certain types of equipment that needs to be checked every time you use it. For example, the safety rope should always be checked if you are jumping across a bridge at an extreme sports park that is suspended 500 feet above the ground.

Among the items that should be inspected are:

  • Fire alarms
  • Fire extinguishers (they should be available and unexpired)
  • Any fences around the property to ensure that they are undamaged and do not have holes    
  • Walkways are free from grease, ice/snow in the winter, and water
  • First aid kits are stocked, and the medicine/medical equipment is unexpired
  • Ladders and other walking surfaces are in good condition and not slippery or unbalanced
  • Any machine guards are undamaged and working properly
  • Machinery, tools, and other equipment are working properly and undamaged.

Every workplace is different and has unique safety risks, but these are a few of the items that should be inspected at any workplace. Obviously, office, construction, manufacturing, restaurants, and every other type of workplace will have other problem areas that must be inspected.

4. You Need Proper Safety Procedures

Employees that have dangerous jobs must have procedures that should be followed to complete them to ensure that they are safe. For example, someone that is operating a forklift should have a procedure to alert people in the work area that they are operating the forklift (a beeping alarm or something similar), and they may also be required to keep their eyes focused and aware of their surroundings while they operate the machine. Workers that operate the equipment need to be aware of the rules.

In all workplaces, there should be procedures in place to ensure that all tasks that have safety risks are properly carried out in a way that minimizes the risk of injury. For example, any lockout-tagout procedures (which ensure that machines are shut off and not able to start until any maintenance or other work is completed) should be well documented.

What Are the Most Common Workplace Safety Violations that OSHA Finds

Below are the most common violations that every workplace should be aware of and prepare for when they consider the areas and equipment in their workplace that is most likely to cause injuries. The list below from OSHA is the Top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards violated in FY 2018

Fall protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Hazard communication standard, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]]

Scaffolding, general requirements, construction (29 CFR 1926.451) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Respiratory protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Powered industrial trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Fall Protection–Training Requirements (29 CFR 1926.503) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements (29 CFR 1910.212) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Eye and Face Protection (29 CFR 1926.102) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]

Conclusion

Every workplace should be safe for the employees that work there. No workplace can eliminate all safety risks and hazards, but by taking steps to ensure good documentation and procedures and adequate training companies can reduce the likelihood that someone is injured on the job.

Brett Holubeck (of Houston, Texas) is the attorney responsible for this site.