Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
As states are weighing their options about extending stay at home orders or letting those orders expire, facility managers should begin taking steps to protect employees at higher risk of severe illness now, prior to reopening, according to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
With the number of COVID-19 cases beginning to level off in some areas, employers that have ceased operations or shifted to remote work may be considering when, and how, they might be able to bring people back to their facilities. While businesses are understandably eager to resume operations, the potential for missteps is high. Returning […]
This article was last updated and reposted on July 20 in accordance with more up-to-date guidance and links to additional resources. The world has changed in an unprecedented way since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and employers have a lot of questions for our experts at Safety.BLR.com®. Read on to see how experts answered a […]
While forces affecting the workplace change rapidly—an aging workforce, new work arrangements, and state adoption of medical and recreational marijuana laws—regulatory changes move at a slower pace.
On Tuesday, June 25, 2019, Illinois became the 11th state (plus Washington D.C.) to legalize recreational marijuana, while 33 states have now legalized medical marijuana. And as many states become more lenient with their marijuana laws and regulations, organizations should seek out everything there is to know about marijuana and workplace safety and wellness.
The World Health Organization has called stress “the health epidemic of the 21st century.” According to the annual StressPulse Survey conducted by employee assistance program (EAP) provider ComPsych Corporation, stress and personal relationship issues are the most common reasons for employee absence, accounting for nearly half (47%) of employee absences—handily beating out medical issues. Given […]
You may not think of carrying holiday dishes, decorations and gifts as “manual materials handling,” but that’s what it amounts to. The amount of lifting, carrying, hanging, and hauling that your workers do during the holidays may well exceed what they do at other times of the year. All that lifting and carrying puts them […]
It was the week before Thanksgiving 2014, and the Hardman family was on their way to a dream family vacation at Disney World in Orlando, when the family’s 16-year-old son, who was driving, briefly nodded off at the wheel. Six of the eight passengers were not wearing seat belts; all six were ejected from the […]
34-year-old James Byrnes of North Beach, Maryland, was working from a ladder, hanging Christmas lights at his neighbor’s home in December 2013, when he came into contact with an overhead power line and was electrocuted. That same month, 13-year-old Georgia Marshall of Barry, South Wales, United Kingdom, was electrocuted while helping her father retrieve Christmas […]
By itself, winter carries a heightened risk of fire, because it involves more of the things that create warmth and light—fireplaces, space heaters, candles, cozy blankets. During the holidays, even more light, heat, and potentially flammable decorations are added to that mix.