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
#50: Who Should Get Incident Command Training? What Traits Are Important?
In this episode, the hosts discuss the essential traits required for being an effective Incident Commander (IC) in handling chemical spills, leaks, and other related events. They highlight four key traits that may not be immediately apparent but are crucial for successful Incident management.
1. Understanding the Role of an IC:
Distinguishing between an Incident Commander and an Incident Manager.
The IC manages chemical aspects, while the manager handles everything else.
The importance of combined training to ensure a comprehensive skill set.
Awareness of other emergencies at the facility, such as fire, explosion, and electrical outages.
The need for ICs to be well-versed in various scenarios and interrelated systems.
2. Maintaining Calmness and Mental Toughness:
Dealing with verbal confrontations and excited individuals during command operations.
Knowing when to say no and making tough decisions to prioritize safety.
The significance of mental toughness and thick skin when managing multiple tasks and agencies.
Recognizing the physiological impact of extended hours on decision-making and performance.
3. Selection and Training of ICs:
Identifying individuals with suitable personality traits and roles at the facility.
Considering a level of business knowledge and the ability to delegate responsibilities.
Ensuring training for ICs on all shifts and across various departments.
The importance of involving personnel with expertise in specific areas, such as sanitation or food safety.
4. Knowing When to Conclude IC Responsibilities:
Addressing the challenge of extended shifts and potential fatigue.
The inevitability of incidents occurring at inconvenient times and adverse weather conditions.
Recognizing signs of fatigue, errors, and the need for a fresh perspective.
The importance of having a system in place for a smooth transition of command responsibilities.
The hosts emphasize the interconnected nature of these traits and the collaborative approach required for effective incident management. They also provide additional resources for listeners interested in further details on incident command training.
Keywords:
Instant Commander
Incident Manager
HAZMAT
HAZMAT Technician
HAZMAT Training
Incident Command Training
Incident Manager Training
Manager Traits
Manager Personalities
Safety
Engineering
Food Safety
Sanitation
Ammonia
PSM
Ammonia Spill
EPA Emergency Readiness
RMP Requirements
OSHA
Emergency Preparedness
Safety Training
Chemical Spill Management
Incident Command Training
Emergency Response Traits
Managing Verbal Confrontations
Mental Toughness in Incident Management
Selecting and Training Incident Commanders
Shift-based Incident Response
Ammonia Leak
Chemical Leak
Chemical Spill
Ammonia Response
Refrigeration
Facility-specific Incident Command Training
Fatigue in Emergency Management
Fatigue During Emergencies
Transfer of Incident Command Responsibilities
Allen Safety Coaching
Safety Coaching
In-person Incident Command Training
Emergency Management Podcast
HAZMAT Podcast
Safety Toolbox Talk
Safety Tips
Safety Tricks
Online Safety Learning
Online Safety Training
Free Safety Training
Top four traits being an instant commander, not an instant manager. Instant commander.
Speaker 2:Yep as it relates to managing chemical spills and leaks and events. So here we go. ["trait Song"].
Speaker 1:We got four of these and we're like what should we do this episode on? You know what Traits Like things you don't think about. So here's one of them. We talked about what is an IC. An IC is not an instant manager. Instant manager manages everything besides basic chemical leak. Instant commander manages the chemical leak, but instant commander still needs to be an IM. So, when we do training, we always combine them because our view is they gotta be able to do all of it.
Speaker 2:Well, they have to understand how other emergencies at the facility, so fire explosion.
Speaker 1:Fire could make the leak. You know if I've got if I have electrical outages.
Speaker 2:whatever's going on, there could be other events that either caused or are being affected and we still have to know how all of those systems and what those managers are doing to manage that situation, how that interrelates to our chemical event and what we can and can't do. It's gotta dovetail together.
Speaker 1:They've gotta be currently trained in being a tech, because they have to know what gear to wear. Because how do you direct someone to wear gear if they don't know?
Speaker 2:Well, how do you direct anybody to do any job task if you don't understand what you're asking them to do and what risk is for that and what that looks like? You know it's a completely different experience when you ask someone hey, just run up that flat ladder real quick, and you've never worn the gear and you don't know what that feels like. I mean, that could be a big ask, potentially.
Speaker 1:And all my background was military and fire and sometimes they use the word IC kind of like everybody that's in charge is an IC In the general industry. We usually separate it out. We separate IC as chemical IM is more all other emergencies.
Speaker 2:So, just as a reminder, when we're talking about fixed facility, this is it relates to general industry. Osha code CFR1910,. This is not NFPA stuff. That's the fireside.
Speaker 1:All right. Number two one thing is they gotta be calm, cause guess what? There's a good chance they're gonna have some verbal confrontation while they're running command.
Speaker 2:There's going to be some excited folks that are happy to provide their opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of them usually is you have to be able to know when to say no. So, for example, I have lost count of how much verbal confrontation I've had when we said we can't go in right now. Now, that could be. We don't have the current operator, the current valve. It could be that the outside resource is going to take longer than we thought it could be. You know what? We're not going to have somebody just run into our valve. We had that a few years ago where this guy came out and he was so mad at me cause we didn't let him run back in and turn out like there's no way.
Speaker 2:You have no idea what that environment has done.
Speaker 1:And as a contractor.
Speaker 2:If you get hurt on my host employer's property, you can bet there's going to be some losses and things can happen Plus nobody gets hurt.
Speaker 1:No, we're not going to get anybody hurt, so we're just saying no, we'll wait and regroup and get the right team together.
Speaker 2:To me calm, knowing that that wave of whatever is coming at you, that equates to mental toughness.
Speaker 1:You better have some mental toughness and some thick skin because people are coming for you, You're me and you're a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean you've done that, what do you mean? That we can't get the floors back up and ready.
Speaker 1:We did a couple episodes ago. It talks about time and time, of product, time in the environment, time for the location. But you're managing that time from the very beginning. And the one we did about 15 minutes is because in 15 minutes you have to lot moving around and part of that is you got to know how to delegate, so you got to be able to say this is where I can't do this and I've got to start looking at delegation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's often just knowing that you've got multiple agencies and people on the team itself and multiple managers that are going to be questioning every decision you're making and wanting you to explain to them who maybe they have never had any of this training. They don't know what's going on at all, so they don't know why are we doing these steps?
Speaker 1:They?
Speaker 2:don't know what they don't know and you're having to explain. We can't legally do that.
Speaker 1:Number three is who do you pick for that training?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of what individual personality traits, as well as what roles at the facility, make sense. To get training, you want someone calm.
Speaker 1:You want someone who knows a level of business. If I'm a new supervisor for third shift, I may be the IC, but I'm not the best trained overall for everything that's going on. I'm just IC for that moment but I could be. Maybe it's a.
Speaker 2:Transfer and command pretty quickly. If that's the scenario, yeah, so I would consider who are you providing training to, based on when you expect that responses could occur? So I need, first off, I need people trained on all shifts of them in 24-hour business and I expect that I'm going to respond on 24 hours.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I want to have wastewater or rendering or any of the different parts of the business Sanitation, sanitation. If I got sanitation on third shift, which most of my plants do, we should have an instant commander on third shift training, absolutely Because they know that chemical better than anyone.
Speaker 2:They may not run the entire event, but you've also got to consider what's going on on third shift. It could be a chemical wrong mixture. It could be a chemical spill.
Speaker 1:They're the chemical expert, or it could just be.
Speaker 2:That's when we do some of the work, because the plant is down in that moment, so we're doing other projects and maybe it is an ammonia release that's right.
Speaker 1:So, depending on what it is For the cleaning evaporator on cleaning day and how to leak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so depending on what is going down and what is leaking, that's also going to change. Who makes sense to train in this? So if I'm going to have sanitation things going on, I think in my world it makes a lot of sense to try and get food safety involved as well as an incident manager, because they've got to clear the product and say it's good or it's not good and we've got to tank it or it's fine.
Speaker 2:I mean, they've got to be involved in some of those things and understand if we can't get this shut down right now, we're not going to be able to hold temps in the freezer. That's a problem, guys. They're going to be able to be a part of some of that decision making process, so they should have some training too.
Speaker 1:Now we think the GMs can go to the training to be an IC, but the GM should not be an IC.
Speaker 2:I think the education part is fine. I think they should never actually be running an IC.
Speaker 1:There's things like they got to do corporate contacts, customer contacts maybe we can't get product out today. They may be ordering food for us, helping coordinate, hey maybe HR, if I can't get to the cafeteria.
Speaker 2:I'm hungry, I'm tired everything's. I've got to feed everybody. Still just the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's also management who comes in or not? There's a management functions that are going on.
Speaker 2:Canceling shifts yeah.
Speaker 1:Cancel shifts, locking down the roads, spending with agencies on those. So, yes, you can have some senior managers trained, but that's usually more for information, so they know how to communicate to other groups or agencies just what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so usually in my world the folks that are actually physically running IC, it's my utilities folks, it's my sanitation folks, possibly you know safety, engineering and maintenance, maybe a superintendent who we want to have the education of what's going on so that they know how their department or their role is affected.
Speaker 2:I love, like I said, I love having food safety involved. I love having HR involved from the dignity protocol side from the employee, like canceling shifts and things like that side. I like to have my nurses involved so that they can know how that they're kind of interrelating with the triage situation and all of that going on during potential decon.
Speaker 1:But there's two things we want to note. One is, just because I was a safety manager, if I didn't go to IC training, don't mean I'm an IC, but you got to watch the roles and sometimes they'll get a little blurred and people say, well, they're that role, so they're automatically going to be. They need to go to IC training. No, they got to go to IC training.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other way it works is their job and roll at the facility no matter what, because the same goes for my engineers. If my engineers don't have a current incident command certificate, they can't manage the hazmat event and, like Joe said, same goes for safety. So it's really critical if those folks want to be involved, they've got to get to the tech training and they've got to get to the IC training.
Speaker 1:So that's the training part of it, and then number four is when he basically done.
Speaker 2:When does it end? When does my job as IC done? When can I be done with that? I?
Speaker 1:started at 7 AM running IC, but I've already been up all night working. Thirds, how long am I supposed to be here running IC? Because maybe I need a lot more people training now.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to tell you right now. Usually, the leaks happen at the end of somebody's shift.
Speaker 1:And the worst weather and the worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's just inevitable. It's like I've already been here for way more hours than I thought and then it happens at the end of my shift and I'm like, ok, and here we go, because here goes 12 more hours.
Speaker 1:And if it was my plan, I'm edgy about leaving because I know what I'm doing. I've had a lot of ICs. They don't want to leave during the day. They don't want to leave Because they have ownership, but there comes a point where you're tired, you're hungry, you're making errors, you're making errors.
Speaker 2:And you don't even realize it. So when we talk about the traits of who should be in IC, sometimes it takes another IC to come in and say, hey, you've got to go home. You've got to get some sleep. You're not doing us any good.
Speaker 1:You're making it worse and you're starting to make errors and you're missing big things and we know this because we'll get a call, sometimes the first 20 minutes, 15 minutes of a week. But we get a lot of times we get a call during this time We've been doing this a few hours. Somebody's tired and like what can we do? Because we're starting to hear these weird little errors, and I'll get a call back and say well, look at doing this, how long you been up for, how long you been doing this, Did you eat anything? Did you sleep?
Speaker 2:I will tell you from a physiological standpoint, there comes a point when you've been up for a certain amount of time Usually it's about 24 hours you push, pack light I'm not tired anymore, but your stomach starts hurting. You kind of start feeling icky, and then, once you start pushing that 30 hour mark, it's like I had a thought and now it's gone and I don't know what it was.
Speaker 2:And so that's not helpful having those folks on staff. So you need somebody else to come in and say we're transferring, you got to go home, you're not doing us any good, we've got this and you've got to have enough confidence in each other that that person really does have it. They've got it.
Speaker 1:So part of number one is what is an IC is identifying the right group you have together. Part of number two is saying no, you've got to have a team that all agrees. We say no. Number three training. We're all going to go to training together. So we're all on the same path and we all agree. And number four we all help each other. So one of us needs to go on, or maybe our kids sick and we need to go pick them up or something. We've got to be able to have those. So all four of these are separate but they're actually together.
Speaker 2:Right. So I mean one of my big ones is I like having extra senior level managers and supervisors and superintendents trained Because, again, they may just be holding it down for 15 minutes till my engineer can get there, my safety manager can get there, utilities can get there, so they're just making sure it doesn't get crazy and decisions are made that make it way worse and then they transfer command, so for that person it may end up after 10 or 15 minutes For my engineers and safety folks and utilities that end up managing the entire event and are kind of the overarching manager of what's going on for the entire sequence of events all the way through return to normal. I mean this could be tied up in litigation and citations and lawsuits on the civil side.
Speaker 2:It could be a couple of years if you're asking, being asked to go to court and being subpoenaed for things. I mean, it really just depends. And obviously you're not actively running command that whole time but you're still dealing with the event as a manager and having to dedicate time to do those functions, to deal with the citations, to deal with any subpoenas and anything like that. So it could be a lengthy process is what we want you to know.
Speaker 1:So top four of the traits of Instagram.
Speaker 2:Top four. So, again, this is just our opinion. It's based on what we've seen. Take it or leave it, do what you want with it, but this is just from our background and experience, just how we've seen things flow. And again, if you want more information, you can reference episode eight and nine, where we really write down what it feels like from the physical.
Speaker 2:I'm standing here emotionally, what I'm going through as an instant commander. We break down some of the events we've actually had, what we've ran and we've got our team on some of those. So those are great episodes. If you want to know, just experience wise, what it feels like to actually go through that, and we talk about some specific scenarios. And then again you can always join the coaching site alandsafetycoachingcom. It provides how to structure out these programs. If you're not sure from I have an idea if I'd like to start and implement this program all the way through the training and implementation, so you get the full gamut on there. And then again, if you want us to do some incident command training for you, that is a service we offer. Alandsafetycom is our in-person training services where we come and do that hands-on with your team, so that's an option for you too. And other than that, connect with us on social media. We'd love to hear from you. And that's all I got today, you guys.
Speaker 1:You can let us have podcasts Spotify, you know, anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yes, so if YouTube doesn't work for you, we are also on the podcast side, so you can download us and take us with you anywhere, even if you don't have internet service. All right, take care. Have a great week everybody. 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 on-site 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. Safe, efficient, profitable a Worker Safety Podcast.
