The goal of every occupational safety and health (OSH) professional is to maintain a safe and productive worksite and avoid accidents, injury and illness. To ensure worker safety, professionals must be responsible to assess all on-site safety hazards, follow current regulations and safety standards, implement engineering and administrative controls and provide training, to name a few.

Shari Franklin Smith, CSP and 3M Tech Service Specialist for Food, Beverage, Agriculture, Oil & Gas, Petrochem Industries, recently authored an article about building a culture of safety and health at your worksite that appeared September 2016 in USA Today.

A strong OSH program and culture that emphasizes the importance of keeping workers safe, productive and comfortable can have a great impact on the entire workforce.

For more articles on Safety culture, click here:

• To Integrate Safety Culture, Focus on Changing Behavior

Dave Harvey, Director of Environment, Health and Safety at Greenbrier, a metal fabrication company, oversees a team of welders. He noticed that the safety equipment used was cumbersome and ultimately decreasing productivity.

Dave met with the 3M PPE Safety Solutions Team, and they helped him determine that an integrated respiratory protection system was the best way to maximize productivity and help protect his welders from welding fumes and other welding hazards. Now Dave’s crew can get into tight spaces with less equipment, raise their welding shields in certain locations without risking exposure and work more comfortably for longer periods of time. The benefits of comfort, added eye protection, and a system that allowed for some facial hair did not go unnoticed — by other workers or the safety management team.

OSH professionals looking to improve their safety culture can work with an OSH consultant, who can evaluate overall program and equipment efficacy. A consultant can help to identify changes that may go a long way in helping to prevent accidents while also supporting the bottom line. When engineering controls are not adequate and PPE is required, working with a PPE specialist at 3M can help OSH professionals to identify compliant PPE solutions that help optimize worker comfort and productivity.

To read the welding fumes and welding hazards case study that references the integrated respiratory system Greenbrier used, along with welder and safety manager testimonials, visit this link.

Previously featured on 3M's Safety Now & Next site.