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
#47: Incident Manager vs. Incident Command vs. Emergency Manager- What's The Differences?
Episode Breakdown:
1. Introduction to Incident Management
2. EAP vs. ERP: Decoding the Basics
Explore the fundamental differences between Emergency Action Plans (EAP) and Emergency Response Plans (ERP) to establish a solid foundation for understanding incident management.
3. Navigating Industry-Specific EAPs (2:20 - 3:45):
Address the confusion surrounding industry-specific EAPs, like the refrigeration side's version, and examine how they tailor responses to unique challenges such as chemical leaks.
4. The Crucial Role of Training
Delve into the significance of training in incident management, emphasizing the necessity of preparing Instant Managers for a variety of scenarios.
5. Audience Considerations and Stress Management
Highlight the importance of assessing the audience's background and stress-handling capabilities when designing incident management training, drawing parallels with real-life managerial scenarios.
6. Beyond Basic First Aid: Managing the Scene
Explore the role of Instant Managers in managing scenes beyond basic first aid and CPR, addressing the complexities of decision-making, liability, and the distinction between managing and performing physical tasks.
7. Realistic Training Scenarios
Examine the necessity of realistic training scenarios, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience to ensure effective incident response.
8. Selecting and Training Managers
Discuss the criteria for selecting individuals for incident management training, emphasizing the need for comprehensive training regardless of prior experience.
9. Incident Command and Liability
Unpack the language of OSHA Code concerning incident command, highlighting the liabilities associated with managing hazardous material scenes and the need for specialized training.
10. Training Duration and Feasibility
Address the practicalities of training duration, emphasizing the importance of realistic scheduling that accommodates managerial responsibilities.
11. What Incident Management Training is NOT
Clarify misconceptions by outlining what incident management training is not, including dispelling the notion of a three-day intensive training for all managers.
12. Site-Specific Training Challenges
Explore the challenges of providing site-specific training and why generic online courses may not suffice in preparing managers for real-world incidents.
13. Advancing Beyond Awareness Level
Emphasize the need for advanced training beyond awareness level, especially when dealing with scenarios that require instant managerial decisions.
14. Target Audience and Good Samaritan Distinctions
Specify the target audience for incident management training, highlighting the distinctions between workplace training and Good Samaritan acts.
15. Physiological Responses and Practice
Explore the physiological responses during crisis situations and stress the importance of practicing responses to ensure managers can act effectively in high-pressure situations.
Key Topics Discussed:
Incident Management
Emergency Action Plan (EAP)
Emergency Response Plan (ERP)
Instant Manager (IM)
Incident Command (IC)
Emergency Manager (EM)
OSHA Code
Hazardous Material
Training Strategies
Realistic Training Scenarios
Liability in Incident Management
Site-Specific Training
Awareness Level Training
Target Audience for Training
Good Samaritan Distinctions
Physiological Responses in Crisis
Stress Management in Emergency Situations
Workplace Safety
Managerial Responsibilities
Hands-on Training
Workplace Liability
EMT (Emergency Medical Technician)
CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation)
Risk Assessment
First Aid
Workplace Training
Here we go. What's an incident manager class?
Speaker 2:What is an? I am what's incident manager. We get questions about it all the time and there's some confusion on how that relates to incident command and if those two terms are interchangeable. So we're breaking it all down this week there we go. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Alright, so incident manager, incident command. People always ask me we just train everybody in the command. There are differences. The first thing is there's an EAP and an ERP.
Speaker 2:What's an EAP?
Speaker 1:EAP is the emergency action plan. That's like bomb threat tornadoes, violence in the workplace, fire, shooting, fire, all these chemical exposure, but not crazy hazmat.
Speaker 2:And that's, that's one interpretation of EAP. And that's the most common at our locations. However, the confusion comes in is IAR the refrigeration side has a version of what they call an EAP, and that's basically a more defensive response to chemical leaks. So they have EAP and ERP that they use from the refrigeration side, and so there's a little bit confusion on is it only relating to chemical events or is it related to everything, and so, for the purpose of this episode, we're going to use it as relates to everything.
Speaker 1:So EAP is kind of everything. Earp is actually responding. We're responding to a chemical leak, so that's. That's a very good. So first of all is, every business pretty much has an EAP. Every business has the list of things Okay, we have a bomb threat, you're going to do this. We have a medical event, we're going to do this. They have all this list of all things are going to do in the EAP, yeah. And then they have who's going to do it and they're going to say manager Joe and that role is going to do it. Okay.
Speaker 2:But who's saying that, though Usually it comes from safety.
Speaker 1:Safety is like oh, they should do that and it goes in a nice file in the computer and it gets stored Okay.
Speaker 2:Manager A never gets told yeah.
Speaker 1:So manager A needs to be told and again has some training. So, that's the first thing. So first of all you decide your EAP what you're going to have or not have but then whatever you say they're going to do, you got to train people on that. That's the first thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right the second one. Well, first thing would be letting them know what they're responding to.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, thanks for your promotion, but now you got to do this Right, so okay, all right. The second one is you got to look at your audience and save. Jen got promoted yesterday and now she's a new manager, woo-woo, all right, maybe like a vice president, I don't know. Anyway, so fast promotions in our company, yeah, so. So what we do then is we don't know if she's had medical background or training Her complete background is different than mine. I become a manager. You give me emergency. I've had lost training. You give her an emergency. She never had any, so she had to learn all of those training and skill sets in the job by the employer teaching her I did. So that's what you have. To look at your audience. Y'all look at the stress. Some people don't handle stress very well. No, whenever they have. I remember the first three, four times I did compressions. I was pretty freaked out, and after you get that through, you do better and better.
Speaker 2:But if you don't believe that, talk to a brand new EMT. Yeah, about their first car wreck.
Speaker 1:So you got to look at your audience and you got to be realistic. What you cannot ask the people. You have to say at this like EMT, we see plans, say well, we're going to first spawners or EMTs, right? Sometimes you got to be like maybe that's not our skill set and we let the agencies do it.
Speaker 2:From that point on, Well, yeah, we've heard like BLS, like basic life support, als, advanced life support and ending yeah, so you got to look at your audience there.
Speaker 1:So, like, number three is you're managing. That's the part you got to remember. Everyone can say we have managers. Everyone can say we have a maybe or maybe not have a possible heart attack. So most plants companies train someone for a state CPR as a buffer. The person doing the first day CPR is not always the manager. The manager is managing the scene. The manager is calling 911. The manager is seeing security. The manager is either hot or cold outside in the park. The manager is managing all of this. They're not doing the compression. So what we say is okay, how do we manage it? Well, there's also now different liability from managing to do the compressions. I've had training on to how to do the compressions.
Speaker 2:Well, how are you really doing it? The manager, I'm gonna have you training. I guess I'm training. How are you really doing that? And we have a first date episode Joe, I can't remember what episode number no.
Speaker 1:I think it's number 42.
Speaker 2:42. So we kind of talk about some of the things that they don't cover as it relates to industrial locations having first date CPR, so what?
Speaker 1:you got to think about. Is you got to think about? There's art flesh events on all these events that people have that fell or caught in or seizure or wherever that happens. And we've worked, we worked a ton of those events and I will tell you you can tell who's been through stuff like that before and who hasn't. And the only way to bridge that gap should not be I worked there 10 years and seeing it before it should be. I have training and this is how I'm going to manage it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how do you decide who gets the training? It can't just be. Well, I've been here longer than anybody. That doesn't mean that you know how to do it.
Speaker 1:If I'm a new manager, we've got to train you.
Speaker 2:When you think about emergency management or incident management, what we're really talking about is managing the entire scene and that entire area, as well as taking care of a victim and dealing with everybody else to make sure there are no more, and you're protecting dignity at the same time. That is not skill sets that you're going to learn just by virtue of being a manager out of plant for 10 years.
Speaker 1:So you won't. The neighbor next door ends up having a chemical like the plant does. You're not activating your IC or hazmat because you're not doing hazmat. You're activating your instant manager.
Speaker 2:Who's doing evacuations, who's doing headcount, who's doing symbols, points or shelter in place, shutting down the HVAC.
Speaker 1:We're not in those other stages. So you got to look at how it moves at that location and give those people the training. So look at your audience, figure out what kind of training they need, but then give them the training. So, for example, if you go to one of our IM classes, we just basically say, all right, let's just take everybody in the class. Everybody's got to do the role, everybody's got to understand it, everybody's got to discuss it. It can't just be also two or three, it's got to be. Everybody understands where it is, including the liability. What can I not do? I have to be able to say you know, I was, I was in EMT for a while. So because I was a Navy Corps, well, there was certain things I could not do. You have to know that cutoff. That's just as important as anything else. This is not my role. This is fine. It's my role. This is Anne. It's not my role. You got to know that cutoff because you can't aggravate things.
Speaker 2:Well, and so one of the things that we've heard incident command when you're talking about OSHA code is I am a manager managing a hazmat scene and they talk about incident command. That's the language that OSHA uses to describe doing that task. And so we hear about liability falls on the incident commander If things go sideways. But really that's a manager directing work or directing a task, and that's why we say that same goes for incident manager. If you're a manager and you're directing a task and you cause further harm or harm to additional people because you've not had any training on that, that there's liability in that for that individual manager, as well as the company.
Speaker 2:Standard of care you have standard of care, and we've got to provide folks training on the tasks we expect them to do disclaimer this is our opinions based on our experiences, based on Joe's experiences as a medic and doing all that and then being on scene for some of these. Take it how you want. Make sure you're doing a risk assessment. Do what feels best and seems right for your location.
Speaker 1:Number four all right, these are the things you do not want to cover incident manager. And I'm going to start with the first one, because it's not on the list. But do not make three days. Yeah, because no manager is going to agree to pull everybody out for three days to get the train. And then I'm going to do it. Yeah, make it real. So what we try to do is we tell people here's a certain block of time, you're going to do it, but it's got to be feasible to actually do it. Yeah, I just thought to have two trained. The idea is to have trained on all the different shifts in the different environments so we can cover the events.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are never going to get a manager out of class for eight hours a day over three to four days.
Speaker 1:Not year after year. It's got to be real, yeah, alright. So now here's what it's not.
Speaker 2:The first. So also just to throw this out here if you're sitting here listening to the episode and you're like you know what our EAP is not up to where we want it to be, it doesn't really cover some of the stuff that you're talking about. Refer back to episode number 31. It breaks down all of the stuff that your EAP should have. It's a really great intro to what our coaching site looks like. So if you need more support beyond that, allandsafetycoachingcom, that's a great place for it. All the way you can go to allandsafetycom for in-person. I am training, we can. You can get scheduled.
Speaker 1:That's the only sponsors we got, so yeah, it's just us.
Speaker 2:So if you want an in-person incident manager class and somebody to actually just walk you through this in person. You don't want the responsibility to do it yourself.
Speaker 1:That's fine, we do those too.
Speaker 2:So alright, so what is the training not? So this should not be done 100% online. So I know I'm like, hey, you know? 31 tells you it does not provide a certificate to be an incident manager, though. It just tells you what you should consider, what should be covered in your training, how you pick a trainer. So the training itself should not be done online, because it needs to be very site specific. Here's your high stand, here's your exit routes. How are we going to move?
Speaker 1:them from here to there Because we set our EAPs for here.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's the other side. So the reverse side of that coin is it can't be generic then either. So the reason why it can't be done online is because it's got to be site specific. It's got to be very custom to your staff, your locations, your rooms, your department and and what the configuration of equipment is in those areas where your stairs are.
Speaker 1:You still got to go back and do it there. Yes so yes, so you, if you want to do that as part of that, but you still got to do you still got to make a site specific.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do? Yeah, absolutely do. They've got to know how to do it here in my area, if that's my responsibility. The next thing is this is not awareness level, this is not orientation, and we go through emergency stuff every year and it's awareness level. Everybody in the entire location gets it. This is not that because it's got to be next level. If that's what we're training everybody on, well, then we've got to have some. Really it just think of it as an advanced training, because we're asking people to manage scenarios, so we got to give them some tools to do that, you would train managers on how to manage the employees for HR style.
Speaker 1:This is all it is. Well, I hope you are. I hope you are. What's next?
Speaker 2:The next thing is this is not the entire plant either. This is my supervisor, superintendents and managers, and that's it. So I'm not even probably training leads on this stuff, because if you are an individual that is representing the company in that moment, directing work, and so you've got to be manager level to do some of that stuff for supervisor level, this is also not good Samaritan. Good Samaritan is not going to help you because you're in the workplace. You're not on a sidewalk waiting for the bus, you're not, you know, just at a grocery store. You are in a work setting, covered under work things. So you've got to have some specific training. Good Samaritan is not going to help you there.
Speaker 1:Or Fishing Expo. Yeah we're at a Fishing Expo. I don't know.
Speaker 2:So just kind of things to keep in mind when you're working through this. So the physiological response that most of us have in a crisis or emergency moment is you're going to have either a fight or fly or freeze. You're going to have something like that happen, generally speaking, and so we want to make sure that, if our response is either we're going to do something or nothing, or run away, that we play like we practice, and what that means is we want to be going over verbally. Here's how we're going to respond You're going to go here, let's go out and walk it out. Let's maybe do some drills, because that way it's not so scary. It's not the first time they're having to implement these things. They've gone through the motions before. We want it to be almost second nature. But the biggest thing is we want to give them the details on how to do it, so we're not putting them in a weird place.
Speaker 1:They're going to do something within the first three minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, right there, they're going to do something.
Speaker 2:You want to direct the action.
Speaker 1:You want to direct the action.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing is we've had managers who have been standing there when events have gone down and done nothing because they were in freeze mode. Or they just couldn't do it, or we've had managers jump into action with basically the fight, response and do something. And it made it work. Pull somebody's arm out of a conveyor. It damaged the ligaments, tendons, you know, tissue bones, made it way worse.
Speaker 2:Instead of just cutting off the equipment, stopping it and cutting them out of it and taking them out of it. They ripped their arm out. Well, that made it worse and we can't do that as a management team. So we've got to talk through. Here's how we're going to do this. Here's the game plan. Let's kind of run through it a few times so that we give them the tools to make sure that everybody's okay.
Speaker 1:That's that. So, number one get a plan together. Number two figure out the audience and how you're going to train and what you're going to do. Number three look at all the management styles of realistic things you're going to do there and from the liability side. And number four, all the things that you don't want to cover because, again, you can't pull them up for three days right now. Yeah yeah, so you got to be very realistic.
Speaker 1:What are we going to do here in the snowstorm at 2 am, with a new manager? What are we going to do? And then you go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Well, you can check us out on social media. Joe and I are both on LinkedIn. We've got a Facebook, we've got Instagram, we've got TikTok. Alan Safety LLC is our handle for pretty much everything, or Joe Allen, jen Allen, on LinkedIn and stuff. So you can check us out on social media. We post different videos of training and just fun things to think about.
Speaker 2:And make sure, if you haven't sign up for IIAR, it's March Orlando, I'm speaking, I'd love to see you, so come visit me and we can chat, and I will see you next time, thank you everybody.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Have a great week 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. Performs drowsy training you.
