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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
Trending Safety, EHS & PSM Risks Managers Must Mitigate in 2025
Where will the top safety risks and threats fall in 2025? Joe and Jen throw out their predictions for 2025. Let us know in the comments what your predictions are!
1. The Continuation of Key 2024 Trends into 2025
The episode kicks off with a reflection on 2024’s biggest safety and compliance trends, including the growing complexity of safety protocols and the rise of multi-stakeholder involvement in documentation.
Predictions for 2025 include heightened emphasis on process ownership and the need for more specialized training amidst rising turnover rates.
2. Who Should Be Signing Off on Safety Documents?
Understanding Documentation Responsibility: The discussion highlights the challenges of ensuring that the right individuals are signing critical documents like PSM protocols, environmental safety validations, and lockout/tagout procedures.
Role-Based Validation: Different documents require different expertise.
3. The Importance of Qualifications and Expertise
The team stresses the need for honesty in evaluating one’s qualifications. Managers and employees alike must assess their ability to handle specific responsibilities, from evaluating tie-off points for elevated work to managing ammonia refrigeration systems.
They discuss scenarios where managers are assigned tasks outside their expertise, highlighting the risks of improper sign-offs and the need for ongoing technical training.
4. Addressing the Experience and Training Gap
As turnover rates rise and companies promote from within, a critical gap in industry-specific knowledge is emerging.
5. Process Safety Management (PSM) Challenges
The conversation touches on the growing complexity of PSM responsibilities and the struggle to assign ownership.
Many organizations are stretched thin, with roles like safety, environmental, and even HR managers taking on PSM duties without sufficient training.
The hosts emphasize the need for subject matter experts (SMEs) who understand the technical aspects of systems like thermodynamics and leak mitigation.
6. Why Document Signatures Matter
Signing off on a document is more than just an administrative step—it signifies ownership, responsibility, and accountability for safety and compliance.
7. Practical Solutions for Safety Challenges in 2025
The episode closes with practical advice for organizations facing these challenges:
Conduct evaluations of education and baseline knowledge to ensure the right people are signing critical documents. Develop training plans for onboarding.
Utilize personnel at sister plants, or location subject matter experts to help fill in knowledge gaps.
Call to Action:
This episode is packed with practical insights for professionals navigating the dynamic safety and regulatory challenges of 2025. For tailored support, visit AllenSafety.com or AllenSafetyCoaching.com to explore on-site evaluations and training options or access over 100 lessons on Allen Safety’s virtual coaching platform. If this episode was helpful, please like, subscribe, and share to help others stay informed and improve workplace safety!
This video is intended for educational purposes. Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice. It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.
Last week we did an episode on the biggest trends that we saw in 2024. This is our prediction of where we think some of the biggest opportunities are going to lie for 2025. Come on, join us and let's break it down.
Speaker 2:Here we go.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome back to the channel.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everybody. So biggest trend we think, or we are predicting in January of 2025 that we're going to continue to see. We saw a little bit of this in 2024. I think this trend is going to move forward.
Speaker 2:And over the years we've seen versions of it. It just keeps growing.
Speaker 1:it seems like, yes, we have I talked a little bit about some of this at IAR in 2024 back in Orlando. It's this at IAR in 2024 back in Orlando. It's growing right, so kind of like driving on ice. Impact is inevitable here, so we've got to prep for some of that, and so that's why we're talking about it today. And that thing is who can sign off?
Speaker 2:on the documents safety them.
Speaker 1:whatever the document is, we have signatures that have to happen on documents by someone by someone. We have to make sure that that is the right someone, and that right someone changes based on what the document is and what's on it.
Speaker 2:So the break that down. So the first one we look at is we have to identify who's in charge of that section.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like is this environmental? Is this?
Speaker 2:PSM.
Speaker 1:Who is kind of the overarching person that manages this subject first? We have many stakeholders that have an interest.
Speaker 2:It could be a forklift inspection Someone has to validate it. It could be a confined space, it could be PSM side, it could be environmental. It could be a contractor coming on site.
Speaker 1:Each one of those have different people that could be managing those Yep, so it could be ops in some circumstances.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Depending on where you are, and we talked about this.
Speaker 2:Like a lockout, tagout, validation that could be ops all day long.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, could be ops. They may be in a better position because of their understanding about how that equipment works, the troubleshooting, what has to happen for sanitation to take place. They may have a better understanding of what that validation is for that lockout, maybe more so than the safety person. So they may be the subject matter expert.
Speaker 2:You've got to figure that out first.
Speaker 1:So I think really, what it boils down to and we'll talk about solutions at the end is there are going to be subject matter experts, and we want to make sure that we identify who that is for each of the different forms so that's first one, identify who's in charge of that problem, process, project, whatever you want to call it who owns it, who manages the program, who trains the people?
Speaker 2:yes, absolutely the next one is you got to say to yourself I'm in charge of it, am I qualified? Yeah and the answer is it's really easy you know or you don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to be honest on this one. You really have to be honest about your limitations, right, you've got to be true like if you had to evaluate a tie-off point for elevator work.
Speaker 2:I have engineering background. I have certifications. I've been in industry a lot degree. I'm not doing that. That's not my side that's no so just because so you have so many versions, different people's backgrounds, is what we're trying to say. Yep, you have to say to yourself I've now been handed this task and I'm in charge of this process. Am I qualified to do that Absolutely. And if you say no, now that's your next thing. You got to have the right training. Absolutely you can wire lights all day every day.
Speaker 1:I am not. We know what we. I am not gonna do the electrical training for a plant. Well, it's not so you gotta need to be honest about there's if there's someone who is genuinely better qualified, and it's just a better idea, especially if you're not the end user absolutely and you're training other people to go and do a task where they can get severely injured on. You got to really be honest on this one.
Speaker 2:So we've got to figure out who's in charge of what. We got to figure out what If you're qualified. And then the next thing you do right when you say, yep, I've got all that. You got to say to yourself do I understand the problems the end user could have? I cannot answer those problems. My training and my qualification is not right so I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:So one of the big trends that we are seeing is sm is shifting around right now. Everyone is over leveraged. The safety is like well, we don't want it. And engineering's like, but it which regulates it? We don't want it, we're running short, we're trying to keep the floors on, we don't want it. Environmental is like well, we don't really want it either.
Speaker 2:And sometimes safety is environmental same person and so now you've got this like sometimes I'm hr now and I'm running all of them because they don't have the other positions there yes, so now it's like who's going to be in charge of psm?
Speaker 1:what manager is going to be in charge? What we really need to be asking, though, is who understands thermodynamics, who understands how the product flows?
Speaker 1:through the pipes is the subject matter expert, the only subject matter expert we have, correct at the plant. The person who's gone operator one, two or taking those classes is the greatest certification and is the hourly. Is that the only person that really genuinely understands how the system functions and how to get it back on track if we start deviating and going the wrong way, having issues? Do they understand how to correct from that deviation or how to shut down a leak? If we don't have any other technical experts that really can supply those answers on site, that's going to be a flag. We need to pause and start putting some other buffers in place. Start getting a hold of people, start figuring out a plan, because I can't have someone who doesn't understand the system sign off on a line break, Right.
Speaker 2:So my last one is is I'm signing off on this hot work. My idea is we don't have a fire yeah if we do.
Speaker 2:I'm signing off on a line break. I don't have a leak, but what do we do? I understand I'm signing off on the forklift being repaired. You got to look at that person signing. There's a reason. They're signing something. It's not just signing a document. They're signing it saying they're taking ownership of that item. So they need to be thinking about yes, I'm qualified, yes, I understand. I need to be planning for what could go wrong, because weird things happen when you start signing documents I'll give you just a little bit of an example.
Speaker 1:So I have safety managers and I have engineers and I have operators. What happens if everyone is six months or less, or a year or? Less at that particular facility. Just because I'm a safety manager, just because I'm a maintenance manager or an engineer, that does not mean or guarantee that I have ever had any ammonia refrigeration experience or training at all. But typically those manager roles are asked to sign things like management changes.
Speaker 2:PSSRs Update programs and procedures.
Speaker 1:Yep we have to sign off like yes, this SOP is correct, but if I don't understand the system, I'm not sure what I'm looking for. So how can I say that I, as a manager, Jen, this is correct and train others on this document. That's saying, yes, this is good to go. I don't know what I don't know.
Speaker 2:Because now you don't know what could happen if you do it wrong. So because you don't know that, I'm just saying it seems fine. You could be creating catastrophic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why there's different categories of it. It's not just do one thing. You have to break these down, look at them and then close out with solutions. Now Give me some ideas.
Speaker 1:So this kind of goes back to the trends that we saw back last episode in 2024 is that some of our managers don't have that food industry experience. You know they're not at the same location for 15 years, 30 years. We're starting to see more of that turnover right. We're starting to see less experience. So people that are coming to us are coming from outside of the industry.
Speaker 1:They don't know or they're someone internal they promoted and they're like hey, you, you've been here for 20 years, so we're going to give you this job now promotion could have been a prize or promotion, which is awesome, but we do need to evaluate and make sure that we're going to ask managers to sign certain documents, that they have a certain baseline knowledge to make sure that they understand what they're signing. Otherwise, again, just throw it in the trash because the check and balance that was intended to happen when that manager signed off.
Speaker 2:That's a control feature.
Speaker 1:That was the control feature and they didn't have the knowledge to evaluate whether we were really good to go or not Correct. And then the last part of that piece of equation is that we also can't have hourly signing legal documents. That's correct, right? So that's. The other piece is that we really want to make sure that we do have a manager signing those documents, and if we don't have the right training for them, there's a lot of great options in terms of the different training that they can get.
Speaker 1:They can do internal, external. There may be somebody within your company that is a subject matter expert at another location that they can shadow. So, there's all kinds of options. You know third parties. There's some great ammonia trainers and schools out there. Dm us if you've got questions on LinkedIn. But again, these are our opinions. These are our opinions. This is just my prediction. This is just what we have seen.
Speaker 2:We'd be a lottery taker if we knew exactly.
Speaker 1:I know I would play the lottery. So this is just what we're anticipating. We'll see if it comes true and comes to fruition. Um, if you want some help on site highlandaffsafetycom, we do a lot of one day, two day psm evaluations, safety evaluations. I don't love the word audit because it's not we call it a like auditing paperwork on a computer or in a conference.
Speaker 2:We call it a process improvement visit that has to do with safety yeah, that's what we call it, safety related. Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1:So we can do some on-site training we got you. Otherwise, if in-person services are not in the budget, wellsafetycoachingcom is a great in-between over a hundred different lessons on their videos and it includes free email-based coaching and I would be amiss if I didn't say please like, subscribe and share if this helped you. 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 wwwallensafetycoachingcom for web-based virtual coaching and training, or at wwwallensafetycom 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. Thank you.
