Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Joe and Jen Allen of Allen Safety LLC take their combined 40+ years of worker safety, OSHA, EPA, production, sanitation, and engineering experience in Manufacturing Plants including Harvest Plants/Packers, Case Readies and Further Processing Plants, Food Production Plants, Feed Mills, Grain Elevators, Bakeries, Farms, Feed Lots, and Petro-Chemical and bring you their top methods for identifying risk, preventing injuries, conquering the workload, auditing, managing emergencies and catastrophic events, and working through OSHA citations. They're breaking down real safety opportunities, safety citations, and emergency situations from real locations, and discussing realistic solutions that can actually be implement based on their personal experiences spending 40+ weeks in the field every year since 2001. Joe and Jen are using all of that experience to provide a fresh outlook on worker safety by providing honest, (no sponsors here!) and straight forward, easy to understand safety coaching with actionable guidance to move your safety program forward in a way that provides tangible results.
Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
#44: Maximize Efficiency & Schedule Safety & PSM Like A Pro
Introduction and Background:
Jen introduces herself as the host.
The episode revolves around organizing the year for safety managers, especially those handling Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) responsibilities, security, and Process Safety Management (PSM).
Challenges Faced by Safety Managers:
Safety managers deal with a multitude of tasks such as PMs (preventive maintenance), audits, inspections, and monthly safety topics.
Responsibilities include handling emergency equipment, fire safety, audits at varying intervals (three and five years), and more.
Organizing the Year:
Jen emphasizes the importance of creating a physical calendar, not just a digital one, to visually plan and track tasks.
Advises using tools like Excel to create a detailed monthly calendar outlining regulatory requirements, such as three or five-year tasks, monthly safety topics, quarterly safety inspections, permit renewals, and more.
Task Prioritization and Scheduling:
Recommends creating a list of tasks, determining expiration dates, and scheduling completed-by dates.
Stresses the need to understand the intent of timelines, whether they are monthly, 30-day, two-week, or six-month intervals.
Labor Management:
Acknowledges the potential challenge of having limited labor resources.
Encourages evaluating tasks and considering outsourcing or seeking third-party expertise for specialized procedures and programs.
Budget Considerations:
Discusses the option of hiring a third party and acknowledges budget constraints.
Promotes the use of online resources, mentioning "allensafetycoaching.com" for affordable training and coaching.
Liability and Risk Assessment:
Advises evaluating tasks that involve significant liability and risk.
Suggests outsourcing tasks that are beyond one's expertise, emphasizing the importance of subject matter expertise in critical safety areas.
Outsourcing Inspections:
Urges safety managers to promptly schedule outsourced inspections and audits.
Emphasizes the importance of selecting convenient times to avoid scheduling conflicts during peak seasons or staff shortages.
Choosing Third-Party Services:
Recommends reaching out to potential service providers promptly to secure preferred scheduling.
Advises thoroughly comparing service bids, understanding the scope of services, and clarifying terms such as expenses, turnaround time, and language options.
Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser:
Keywords:
Safety manager,
EHS,
security,
PSM,
organizational strategies.
Challenges Faced by Safety Managers
PMs,
preventive maintenance,
audits,
inspections,
monthly safety topics,
EHS responsibilities.
Organizing the Year
Physical calendar,
Excel,
regulatory requirements,
three-year tasks,
five-year tasks,
quarterly safety inspections.
Task Prioritization and Scheduling
Labor Management
Limited labor resources,
outsourcing,
third-party expertise,
subject matter expertise.
Budget Considerations
Hiring third party,
online resources,
budget constraints,
allensafetycoaching.com,
affordable training.
Liability and Risk Assessment
Significant liability,
risk assessment,
subject matter expertise, critical safety areas.
Outsourcing Inspections
Scheduling
outsourced inspections,
preferred scheduling,
peak seasons,
staff shortages.
Choosing Third-Party Services
Service bids,
scope of services,
expenses,
turnaround time,
language options.
Listener engagement,
social media platforms,
travel tips,
safety managers,
frequent travel
Happy New Year. This week we are going to be talking about how to organize your year. So it's the first week of January and everybody's kind of back in the office and not really sure how to get started, maybe feeling a little overwhelmed. We've got a lot of things that we've got to accomplish and I don't know how we're going to do it. So we're going to break it all down this week. So here we are, let's go. New Year Welcome back. So, as you may have noticed, joe's remote this week and so it's just me in the studio this week and then he is remote.
Speaker 2:We got to get the team organized this week and we're all doing that Same thing.
Speaker 1:Yep. So this week, like we talked about, this is going to be organizing your year. There are so many things that we're responsible for. If we're in safety maybe we've got safety and PSM, and maybe some of us are also environmental and security. So how do you make sure that your year doesn't just go to crazy come April and things are falling off the list and we're getting behind? How do we even make sure that we're even aware of when our expiration dates for everything are? So that's what we're going to talk about today, so the first thing that we do, that is, create a calendar or a tracker and I don't
Speaker 1:necessarily yeah, I don't mean an outlook. Honestly, if that works for you and keeping it on your phone works for you, then cool. But I will tell you this is something that I did when I first started in safety and EHS and it was truly a lifesaver that I just physically needed that calendar on the wall to be able to be like, okay, what is the first quarter? And I still have that actually in my office. I've got every quarter and it tells me each month for each quarter what is coming due and what is going on. So that would be the first thing. So, on this, what are you going to even include? So I'm looking at including things like any annual inspections. That could be things like your fire sprinklers If you've got annual mechanical integrity stuff that you've got to do from a PSM side any of your audits so, whether it's a safety audit, maybe it's some kind of ISO recertification, a spot check, a PSM related audit, phas or something like that that maybe those happen every three to five years at your facility.
Speaker 1:Is that coming due this year? So you include things like that. You also have all of your monthly safety topic training on there. At least I would, I did, and I also like having all the medical stuff. So if you've got FIT, test physicals, pfts, I like to include all of that on there too, because you want to make sure that you're staying ahead of that and that we don't start pushing too close to that expiration date. And now we're out of compliance because we couldn't get everybody in, for whatever reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a great one's the sprinkler. If you don't realize your sprinklers are due in June and you put on your calendar, I've got to recheck in April, may to even schedule it. It may be past June for then get it done, just for timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, listen, we all know that everybody's having labor issues right now, so the further out that you can schedule some of these things or at least have a ballpark understeering, that this is coming due, so it's on your radar. If it's things that you're doing, internal M's, pm's is a big one. Make sure that anything monthly, any of your environment or your emergency stuff, throw that on there too. If you've got anything like that that you've got to do, maybe you're in charge of doing the annual lockout tag out procedure reviews or PPE assessment reviews, anything like that space those out so say, I've got 100 PPE assessments I've got to do, and that's on top of all of my other daily responsibilities. Let's space those out so that they're not just overwhelming and we can make sure we're really truly taking the time that they deserve to review those procedures, because it can be really time consuming. And that, honestly, kind of rolls me into my next item.
Speaker 1:Make a list of topics. You are not sure you've got the labor to complete yourself, so the heavy hitters are always any of your procedures or assessments on these. So I'm talking any SOPs, ppe assessments, ergonomic assessments, anything like a lockout tagout procedure, machine-specific stuff or confined space assessments All of those require an annual review to make sure that they're still correct and current. You may find you are missing several or they never got done. We can't find them. Whatever the case may be, you're going to want to make sure that you include those on your calendar. You spread them out a little bit as much as possible. But if you're concerned that you still don't believe you have the labor to be able to complete those, or maybe just not the knowledge and maybe you're receiving a little bit of pushback hey, we've got a cut cost, things are getting higher.
Speaker 1:What I would encourage you to do is look at quantifying. How much time is it going to take you above and beyond your typical or normal responsibilities? So time yourself. How long does it take you to go out to the production area and complete one lockout, tagout procedure on a piece of equipment and I'm talking you from the time you have to take the photo, write the assessment, go back to your computer, load the photo into the program or word or whatever process you're using and then write all the site-specific and machine-specific information? How much time does that take you? Now? Multiply that times all of your procedures that you've got to do, whether it be PPE or whatever the case may be that you're looking at and truly identify. Can you do this? And that's the kind of information that you're going to take to your management team to say, hey, I don't have the expertise and also it's this much time and we just don't have the labor to do it.
Speaker 2:I think another thing you look at is if you have something that's due every two years or three years or five years. Sometimes those get lost. So you've got to kind of go back and look at your old list and say, hey, this should be over five years. Did we do it in the last five years? If not, it could be this year. When are we going to do that? Because that gets the Walter numbers also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you identify whatever that is, put that on your calendar, just hand write it in and when you go do your next printed off calendar.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm talking like I had it down the wall and I actually got the template from my dad because he was so incredibly meticulous and it's been passed around so many times. Some of you all may have it that are listing, but I mean it's just the visual reminder so you can go and look instead of actually having to open a file or open. I mean it sounds silly, but just it being right there and being able to visually see it, it really helps, especially if you're on things like halls or you can't find it for whatever the reason. It's really beneficial than having to look here every month and then try and look at every day of every week with all of the meetings we have. It's just hugely beneficial.
Speaker 1:Number three for me, before we get into this, we do have a sponsor and our sponsor is our AlanSafetyCoachingcom site and so when you're listening to this, if you're looking at budget items and you're just like, I don't think that we can straight out hire someone who is an expert on this. We're going to have to do it internal. But I don't feel like my knowledge base is there and I'm not sure how to even start tackling these things. Alansafetycoachingcom gives you step by step lessons. We've got over a hundred lessons on all of the safety, including PSM topics and sanitation topics for cleaning. So if you've got questions about how to actually go about implementing anything creating training, creating a program, creating templates, implementing those these lessons help you from start to finish and through the rollout phase for every safety topic that you would typically expect to see.
Speaker 1:So, alansafetycoachingcom, all right For number three. You're going to want to make a note of anything that carries risk for your location or you as a manager, your employees, liability concerns for your employees or for you, your managers, your facility, the company itself or just anything you don't feel like you or your team at that site of managers has a subject matter expert in, and these are the items that I would truly encourage you to look at. Outsourcing, and a big one that always comes to mind for me is writing lockout, tagout procedures, because Joe and I have just seen so many times and Joe, you can kind of speak to this maybe too, we don't have the time, we don't have the labor, we don't have the knowledge, we hire an intern. The intern does the procedures.
Speaker 2:What we see is the people who have the knowledge have multiple jobs now compared to what they had before, and how have any time?
Speaker 1:They do not have the time.
Speaker 2:And the people who have the time don't have the knowledge. So you have this weird gap that comes. You're like how did that happen? And then the stuff's not right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think the big one here is we want to keep in mind what is the intent of what we're trying to accomplish? Are we trying to get something in place? And structure in place Is our goal. We really want to drill down and make sure that these are specific to our site, specific to the job tasks we're doing, whatever that looks like, and how are we using this information? Because if we're using it for any kind of annual training or if we're using it for new hiring, onboarding, we really want to make sure that's correct. So we've really got to be sure that whoever is in charge of either training that subject or creating that procedure or assessment really is a subject matter expert. And so if you don't feel like your subject matter experts have the time, or you just don't feel like you have any, I would really encourage you to go to your management team and have a conversation and look at what on that list you could use a third party to help you out for.
Speaker 2:And it could also be what you consider training needed to perform that task. You may find that you have people that are qualified internally. You find out you have people that are not qualified external. You got to figure out what is the qualification to complete that task. To get the result that I want and that's part of your list is I don't want just somebody, I need somebody to do this task correctly, and then that's who you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Well, when you're looking at any of these third parties because of a labor standpoint or because of a subject matter expert situation, you want to make sure that you're reaching out as early as possible, because what you don't want is for them to come back and say, gee, I'd love to help you out, but we are booked for the next four months and turns out, whatever you had going on comes due in the next two to three weeks, or the only time they have available is now during your busy season.
Speaker 1:And now it's an absolute impossibility to try and get everybody through and keep the floor staffed or production area staffed and have enough time to give people the rest. And now shift coverage and who comes in and the different maintenance shifts or production shifts, and trying to schedule everybody to come in maybe on their off day it just becomes really complicated. So if you have the ability to reach out to those folks early and in advance, then I would encourage you to really do that, because then you can pick the best time that works for you and your team and make sure that you're not exceeding the 12 month mark or the year mark for some of the staff if it's an annual requirement.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It could also be that the company make a company like Alan safety. Just because Alan safety may have the dates available, the subject matter expert we have for that subject may not be available. See, they got a gift time for people to look at what is your goal and what's the result of this you're trying to get.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and like we talked about, we have lots of people who write assessments on our team, but not everybody writes them and not everybody that does write some assessments or procedures writes all of the version. So I've got some folks that are incredible on our staff at writing lockout, but they're not quite as strong at some of the other things, and so we've got a different Consultant that would be providing that service. Some of it also has to do with just what, what the location is and what they're producing. So I've got some folks that are incredible and cattle. I've got some that are incredible in feed milling. I've got some that are incredible in hog production.
Speaker 1:They may or may not cross over in terms of just Genuinely knowing the absolute ins and outs and all the the secret things that nobody wants to talk about, and so you want to make sure that you're getting the number one top person to. I would say absolutely, absolutely. Disclaimer, really quickly these are just our point of view. What's worked for us, what's worked for us as safety managers, environmental managers having PSM responsibilities. You can take it or leave it. It's up to you. This is just our opinion, so don't come here to help, don't come for me, don't go.
Speaker 1:We're just trying to help Our last and final one, number five. So when you are getting those bids, you'll want to make sure that you are able to really genuinely Breakdown and compare them side by side, apples to apples. So some bids will have a whole lot of information and it's almost overwhelming. Some will have only the cost and it'll say something really generic up top of just like the subject that you're trying to hire this particular company for, and then the cost and it'll say to accept this bid, sign here.
Speaker 1:Well, that doesn't tell me anything about really, truly the details of what am I getting for the money? What's included in this? How many days, how many hours, how many procedures or assessments? Does it have photos, is it not? Is it all boilerplate? And you're just Plugging in the name of a piece of equipment into a computer system? Where is that employee going out and taking photos on the floor and handwriting every single step of that procedure? What does that even look like? And who are we getting? What's their experience? So we really want to kind of if they don't provide them ask you want to just make sure that you're asking what does this include? What does it not include what's ala cart that we would have to tack on and if you can't complete the project within a certain amount of time, is that on you, or do we have to pay you for more days because you work slow? I mean what? What does that look like? And you want those details.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're doing a house project right now. We're like is it ever gonna get done? No, three days, or four days or five days. So that's what you have. When is this lockout procedure right here gonna be done? It's gonna take five years or three months, but you're right and and watch your bid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, turn around time, that is a big one am I ever gonna get the stuff back? We see people, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they'll never get it back. So yeah, watch for the weird stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So that's our five today. So create your training trackers and your calendars. Get everything that you have responsibilities for that fall into your sphere of Responsibility. Get it all on a calendar. I'm recommending that it's one that you can print off and have on the wall and visually look at and you can include all of those details on there. So Thanks for joining us this week. We really appreciate it. We hope everybody had an incredible holiday and has come back rested and just feeling so inspired. I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 1:Yes all right. Guys have an amazing week. We can't wait to see you next time. Take care.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to Safe, efficient, profitable a Worker Safety Podcast. If you're looking for more in-depth discussions or step-by-step solutions on all of the different safety and regulatory topics, please visit us at wwwallonsafetycoachingcom for web-based virtual coaching and training, or at wwwallondashsafetycom to book our team for onsite services, training sessions to order merchandise, to learn more about our team and what services we provide in the field, or just simply to request a topic for us to cover on our next podcast. If you found today's podcast helpful and would like to support our podcast further, please help us by subscribing, liking and sharing this podcast with anyone that could benefit from the information we cover here, as that helps us to continue to put out this free content. Thank you so much for your support. February 10, 2018 All Veterans and JACKS clarified in July 2020.
