This material is for training purposes only. Its purpose is to inform Oregon employers of best practices in occupational safety and health and general Oregon OSHA compliance requirements. This material is not a substitute for any provision of the Oregon Safety Employment Act or any standards issued by Oregon OSHA. For more information on this online course and other OR-OSHA online training, visit the Online Course Catalog.

MODULE THREE: PROVIDING RESOURCES & SUPPORT

Introduction

One of the supervisor's most important responsibilities is to make sure he or her employees have everything necessary to work safely. That includes proper tools, equipment, materials, environment, training, and reasonable workload and scheduling. We can lump all of this into four areas that represent the source of about 98% of all workplace accidents.

Oregon's SAIF Corporation has identified four cause categories sources that either directly cause or contribute to injuries and illness in the workplace. Understanding these categories can help supervisors more effectively provide the resources and support that effectively prevents hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors from surfacing in their department. With this in mind, let's take a look at each of these four cause categories.

Four Cause Categories (MEEE)

1. Safety Management System (SMS)

A poorly designed and/or performance of the safety management system may (and probably does) contribute to most accidents in the workplace.

System failures may contribute to 98 percent of the workplace accidents. Uncontrollable conditions account for only 2 percent of workplace accidents. As you can see, most accidents are the end result of safety management system design and performance failures. Consequently, an accident is more likely a matter of "when" not "if."

Flaws in safety programs, plans, policies, processes, procedures and practices (the 6-P's of a SMS) create undesired variables within the system and could, to large extent, be considered a root causes for accidents.

What does this have to do with the Supervisor? Plenty. The supervisor may be the key player in making sure the quality of the daily performance of the SMS is adequate. While the safety staff may design the safety plan, supervisors and employees carry it out: They work the plan. Even a perfectly-designed safety plan won't work if supervisors and employees don't work the plan.

Supervisors provide support in this area best by ensuring adequate performance of the safety management system. They do this by carrying out their safety responsibilities and by maintaining safety training and performance records, completing reports, writing timely work orders, and purchase requests, etc.

2. Employee Performance Supervisors support their employees by supporting a touch-caring approach to safety. Supervisors need to insist employee use safe procedures and practices so no one gets hurt. It's that simple. When this approach is not evident, employee performance may not be safe or appropriate. Employee performance failures includes possible areas of concern:

Personal factors: When a worker is, for some reason, unable to perform safely. They may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, concerned about a family member, fatigued, or for some reason physically/mentally unable to perform a task. Supervisors need to make sure their employees are capable and willing to work safely.

Unsafe employee behavior: An employee may choose to use unsafe procedures and practices. For example, an employee decides not to put on eye protection while working at a grinder. Supervisors must create a tough-caring culture that reduces the likelihood that employees will make poor choices.

Inappropriate manager/supervisor behavior: Managers or supervisors may choose not to carry out safety policies and procedures. They may actually direct employees to perform in a way that increases stress or the probability of an injury. require safe work practices and conditions in the workplace. As an example, a supervisors might fail to conduct initial safety training.

When supervisors apply inappropriately pressure, employees may actually be trapped into using work procedures or short cuts that could get them hurt. An example of being trapped might be a situation in which the employee is expected to perform equipment maintenance, but lacks the lockout/tagout devices to properly isolate the equipment. The employee is, therefore, trapped for forced to use unsafe procedures. That is, unless the supervisor identifies and corrects the problem before the employee begins the procedure.

3. Equipment

Supervisors provide adequate resources by making sure employees are given safe tools, equipment, machinery and materials to use. And, the supervisor makes sure they use them in a safe manner.

Tools need to be readily available and of good quality. Supervisors should make sure tools are used only for their intended use. They should make sure employees do not use defective tools and that defective tools are reported and replaced in a timely manner.

Equipment and machinery should be properly guarded and in good working condition. Supervisors should never allow employees to work with improperly guarded equipment or machinery. Supervisors should make sure preventive and corrective maintenance is being performed.

Materials used by employees should be as safe as feasible to meet their intended purpose. For instance, a toxic chemical should be replaced with a less toxic chemical if the chemical can do the job.

4. Environment

This category includes both the physical and psychosocial workplace environment. To be most productive, employees need to be able to focus on the work they are doing. To be safe, employees should not be distracted by conditions in the physical environment, nor be concerned about situations that produce an unhealthful psychological or social climate. Let's take a look at these ideas a little more closely:

The physical environment: OR-OSHA's General Duty Clause requires that the employer maintain a safe and healthful place of employment. Some of the things supervisors can do to help in this effort include:
- designing workstations to best fit individual employees.
- ensuring adequate ventilation to reduce hazardous atmospheres
- installing heating and cooling controls to reduce temperature extremes
- keeping noise down through engineering and management controls

The psychosocial environment. Although not specifically addressed in OR-OSHA rules, the psychological health of employees is an important consideration. Factors such as workload, scheduling, quality of training, and employee relationships all serve to affect employee safety. Stress, especially from hurry, may be the cause of a significant percentage of workplace accidents.

Work, by its very nature, is stressful: You can't get away from it. But, the supervisor can be key in making sure positive stress doesn't transition into negative distress that occurs when employees they can't control a situation, or worse yet, feel helpless. Negative distress is the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when a conflict exists between job demands and the amount of control an employee has over meeting those demands. Distress is a form of distraction that creates a hazardous condition and increases the probability of an injury or illness. The supervisor needs to look for observable signs of too much stress. Employees can show acute or chronic signs of distress:

Signs of stress may be physical, psychological and/or behavioral including; general anxiety, irritability, defensiveness, anger, apathy, depression, feelings of helplessness, and frequent illness. Signs of stress may be result in the classic flight or fight response. Employees may flee the problem by staying home sick, withdrawing or isolating themselves from coworkers, or just quitting the job. They may fight the problem by arguing, trying to change the job, or worse yet, sabotaging the work.

What can the supervisor do?

Specific steps to ensure a safe and healthful work area

Make sure that the front-end purchases of equipment, materials, tools, and supplies address design safety as well as cost.
Be out and about observing employee behaviors.
Conduct regular safety inspections or audits. Include employees on the inspections.
Conduct regularly job hazard analyses with employees.
Conduct safety meetings. You be the safety leader.
Recognize employees for appropriate safety behavior.
Enforce safety rules. Insist n safety; don't merely encourage it.
Correct hazards as soon as possible. Actions say it all.
Try to help early-on so someone doesn't get hurt later.

Last words

As you can see, there's a lot to do each day in keeping your employees' workplace safe and healthful. I hope this information has helped you understand the importance of the supervisor's role as a safety leader. Well, it's time for your module quiz. This quiz will help you review some of the more important key concepts discussed in the module. If you find it difficult to answer the questions, just review the material and come back to the quiz.

Module Review Quiz

21. According to SAIF Corporation, this cause category contributes to more accidents than any other:

a. safety management system
b. employees
c. equipment
d. environment

22. Types of employee performance failures include all of the following, except:

a. personal performance factors
b. failing to work fast enough
c. unsafe employee behavior
d. inappropriate supervisor behavior

23. Supervisors provide adequate resources by making sure employees are provided:

a. quality tools
b. safe equipment
c. properly designed workstations
d. all of the above

24. All of the following are indications of an unhealthful psychosocial work environment, except:

a. any degree of stress
b. employees always arguing
c. pressure to hurry up
d. unreasonable workload

25. According to the text, an employee will experience the most negative distress when they:

a. can't make all the decisions
b. have to depend on others
c. have to work fast
d. feel helpless

Congratulations on completing the third module! Now that you have been introduced to some methods to detect and correct hazards in the workplace. Head on over to Module 4 to learn more about safety enforcement responsibilities. As always, if you have any questions or comments, just drop me an email at larry.fipps@state.or.us.

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