Are you onboarding your scientists or researchers? How do you know it’s working?Learn better practices from those seeing long-term benefits!

This webinar aired on Thursday September 23, 2021

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Meet the Panelists:

Scott Maddox

Health, Safety, & Environment Specialist3M

Veronica Thron

Lab Safety Review Program SupervisorUniversity of California, Davis

Joan Wickersheim

Associate Director – Research, Campus, & Environmental SafetyUniversity of Texas at Dallas

Jonathan Klane

MC; Director of Risk Management and Safety EducationBioRAFTjonathan.klane@bioraft.com

After many years in consulting, teaching, and directing safety and risk for two engineering colleges, Jonathan is now part of the BioRAFT team in a new role – Director of Risk management and Safety Education. This new innovative position encompasses risk management, safety culture, EHS compliance, loss control, and safety education for the entire community.

It's hard enough to create a positive safety culture without internal politics getting in the way as well. We'll provide techniques for navigating internal barriers to help you achieve your goals.

This webinar aired on April 22, 2021View our other upcoming webinars.

Meet the Panelists:

Sarah Morris-Benavides

Associate Director of SafetyCollege of Science and EHS, University of UtahLinkedIn

Sarah has spent her career building a broad knowledge base of regulatory requirements and program areas across the EHS spectrum. Sarah now uses that base to serve as a liaison between the College and EHS. She works with research groups, academic staff, and unit leaders to identify and mitigate hazards within the College, helps EHS implement initiatives and ensure compliance, and chairs committees charged with promoting a culture of safety at the college and university level.

Aaron Todd, MS, ASP, CHMM

Workplace Safety Manager, Environmental Health and SafetyOHSU

Aaron leads a team of EHS professionals with oversight of fundamental occupational safety and health programs at OHSU, an academic medical center located in Portland, Oregon. Aaron has focused on developing not only technical expertise but also conflict resolution and collaborative problem-solving in a complex, multifaceted organization. From his perspective, howwe approach our roles as health and safety professionals is just as important aswhatwe do.

Matt Segal

MCSciShieldmatt.segal@bioraft.com

Matt found his way to SciShield after working at Boston Children's Hospital performing translational rare blood disease research. As the safety guy in his lab, he saw firsthand how challenging it was to manage safety in a laboratory environment and wanted to find a way to help. He now spends his time hosting webinars, arguing with his 3D printer, and cooking food in plastic bags at low temperatures.

Story narrated in their words by Kimi Brown, collaboratively prepared and written as a story by Kimi Brown and Jonathan Klane

We knew that a campus-wide chemical inventory program would help researchers work more efficiently and improve safety, but until we implemented ChemTracker, we had no idea what a powerful tool this would be!

Like many other places with labs, we do experience the occasional fire or spill. Although it’s rare, we have even had events that require a major emergency response and clean-up. When that happens, our ability to respond safely and confidently depends on getting quick information about the hazards in the space. It can save money in the aftermath, too.

Following one especially—impactful—lab fire (thankfully, with no injuries), we were faced with the daunting task of identifying everything that had been destroyed. With just a few clicks, we were able to export a chemical list, which saved a lot of time for both the disposal vendor and for preparing the insurance claim.

The fire department presented us with another post-incident conundrum: With so many chemicals involved, how should they go about decontaminating the turnout gear that they wore during the response? Because we were able to give them a definitive list of materials involved, they were able to clean and reuse the equipment instead of replacing it, saving the city tens of thousands of dollars.

Thankfully, not every event requires that level of response! We’ve relied on SciShield and ChemTracker to help us communicate lessons learned from smaller incidents, too.

Recently, a hazardous waste container over pressurized when improperly stored methyl methacrylate (MMA) polymerized in the bottle. In a more serious situation, there was an explosion when chemical vapor in a vacuum pump exhaust ignited. In our follow-up to both events, we used the SmartMailer feature to send targeted messages to all the labs across campus that needed to know about these dangers and the preventative actions to take. We sent updated hazardous waste procedures for MMA to the labs that had this chemical, and a vacuum pump safety alert to the labs who use pumps. This way, we could say in our message, “Pay attention, this applies to YOU!”

After we sent the vacuum pump safety alert, several labs replied, “Please come look at our pumps. We’re not sure if this is right!” Some were, indeed, not being used correctly. We were able to help fix the issues and likely prevented future incidents!

It’s funny what you learn sometimes when you suddenly have access to a detailed and searchable database of all your hazardous chemicals. One of our EHRS staff members decided to filter our institution’s chemical inventory by hazard classes just to see what kind of fun stuff we had sitting around in the labs. To our surprise, there were a quite a few containers of chemicals that were classified by DOT as “1.1. Mass Explosion Hazard”.

It was easy for us to see where these chemicals were and who owned them, so we just sent the owners a list of the explosive chemicals in their lab, asking, “Did you know this is explosive? Do you still need it? Because if not, we’ll get rid of it for you.”

Many replied, “Really? Please, come get it out of here!” For those who wanted to keep the chemicals, we asked them to send us a Hazard Control Plan explaining how they were storing and managing the risks of handling the chemicals. Some researchers weren’t aware that they even owned these items, and they were very thankful for the notification and assistance.

This project started some good conversations and bolstered our department’s reputation as a supportive and caring partner in research safety. A program like chemical inventory can easily be seen as just another administrative compliance hassle if it’s not put to good use by both the researchers and the safety professionals. Tools that let us to track, search, and communicate better, give us the power to educate and assist people more effectively. The Penn EHRS Lab Safety group likes to routinely ask the simple question, “Are we helping?” When we know that we can get the right information to the right people at the right time, we can be confident that we are.

Kimi Brown, NRCC-CHO, CSP, ARMSr. Lab Safety Specialist/Chemical Hygiene Officerformerly with University of Pennsylvania

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Do your scientists know all the hazards of their chemical reactions? Hear how our expert panelists communicate, help identify, and avoid these dangerous situations.

This webinar aired on August 26, 2021

Meet the Panelists:

Katie Mulligan

Reactive Chemicals SMEThe Dow Chemical Companykamulligan@dow.com

Resources:Dow Laboratory Safety AcademyLab Hazard Trigger GridChemical Reactivity Worksheet SoftwareCCPS Reactivity Checklist

Katie is Dow's Reactive Chemicals Subject Matter Expert supporting Packaging/Specialty Plastics, Amines, and Core R&D. She's an expert in Reactive Chemicals hazard recognition, evaluation and using calorimetric/flammability techniques to assess/quantify process hazards. She's relied on to define safe operating limits and determine process operation(s) subject to overpressure due to chemical reactivity. Katie's passionate about innovation and recently led a team to couple hazard calorimetry to online analytical detection. She's currently leading Dow's global R&D initiative to prevent lab-scale incidents.

Jonathan Eisenberg

Associate PrincipalArupResources:Process Safety & Design Skills - Process Hazards, Risk, & Compliance

Jonathan Eisenberg is Associate Principal and Americas Region Science Leader at Arup, based in Boston. Jon has 34 years of fire and chemical engineering experience, including specialty chemical manufacturing. Jon supports clients on manufacturing and laboratory risk mitigation and compliance projects. Jon holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Lafayette College and an MS in Fire Protection Engineering from WPI. Jon is a PE in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Amanda Hoyt

Health & Safety SpecialistArizona State Universityamanda.l.hoyt@asu.edu

Amanda's interest in laboratory safety began during her organic chemistry graduate research, where she worked with tert-butyllithium on a regular basis. The infamous case of a researcher's fatal dimethyl mercury exposure through gloves also inspired her interest in glove compatibility. She holds a thesis M.S. in organic chemistry, and has more than five years of experience as an embedded safety professional in academic engineering and chemistry research.

Jonathan Klane

MC; Director of Risk Management and Safety EducationSciShieldjonathan.klane@bioraft.com

After many years in consulting, teaching, and directing safety and risk for two engineering colleges, Jonathan is now part of the SciShield team in a new role – Director of Risk management and Safety Education. This new innovative position encompasses risk management, safety culture, EHS compliance, loss control, and safety education for the entire community.

Previous: Leadership, What Do We All WantTeams, we’ve all been on several throughout our lives. The first team we were likely on was as a child playing a game with friends. We quickly learned that the more we worked together, cooperated, collaborated, and engaged as a single organism, the more likely we’d win the game.

After all, a team is a group working on a shared goal – be it a game, a new work process, or innovating a solution to a problem. We learn the value of creative ideas and not to be critical of team members. Teams develop many shared traits – relatedness, skills, trust, and a sense of purpose, to name a few.

In their “Project Archimedes,” Google determined that psychological safety was the most critical trait exhibited by highly effective teams. Think about the dynamics of groups who need to solve complex problems. Everyone needs to contribute their ideas and possible solutions freely.

Psychological safety is basically trust that we won’t be criticized for a risky contribution. We feel comfortable making creative contributions and taking psychological risks. We learn the value of relating to each other closely and the strengths it brings.

This relatability can seem like or even become a friendship. And strong friendships are characterized by two things – vulnerability and forgiveness.

The more psychological safety and team trust we can affect, the more effective our teams can be.

Then we can solve our work problems, innovate solutions, and maybe win a game or two. And the more fun our teams will have. Build your teams with this in mind. Do great things. Boldly go.

Next: Effectiveness vs. efficiency – Let’s not confuse the two

Sources:

• Harvard Business Review
• Forbes
• Inc.

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Previous: Safety culture – What descriptors would others use to describe yours?Leadership research and articles are numerous, yet there is one trait that frequently rises to the top.

Can you guess? Go ahead; I’ll wait. If you said integrity, give yourself 10 points.

Similar to the many articles on leadership, there are several definitions or contexts for integrity.

A simple one is “walking the talk,” meaning that our behavior meets our words. Integrity obviously has a value basis. People often describe it as a combination of honesty and ethics consistently demonstrated.

When we lead our teams, how we conduct ourselves is critical. It’s not just what we say, but also how we act. Whether it’s a student organization, a staff group, or a research group in a lab, what are the examples that we set? As leaders, we are often instrumental in establishing our team’s norms of accepted behaviors and ones that aren’t part of how we engage with each other.

Speaking of group norms, what’s another word for it? Again, I’ll wait. Did you say culture? If so, that’s another 10 points for you. So, when we engage in safety and health practices and behaviors in our team setting, we’re establishing a safety culture. And if it’s a positive one, it may be a true culture of safety.

When we demonstrate our concern for the health and safety of others, that reinforces our safety culture.

Group norms are contagious; they can be a good infection that bonds us, builds our team, and develops strength and resiliency. When we demonstrate that we actively care for our team members and their health and safety, it shows our integrity.

Be a safety leader – demonstrate integrity – show you care.

Jonathan

Next: Teams and the one thing that makes them successful

Sources:

“Reframing Organizations” by Bolman + Deal

“Project Management for Dummies”

“The Economist”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Previous: If I Can Focus On Only One ThingEvery group has some type of safety culture – the good, the bad, and the ugly are certainly three of many possibilities. How would others describe the safety culture for your group or team? Well, let's start with some possible categories.

As part of a study, I sought out descriptors in the safety culture literature, and I found 60. To be clear, these are mostly one or two-words used to describe a safety culture (as opposed to definitions or examples). Sixty seemed like a lot to wrap our brains around.

So, I sorted them into one of four categories - positive, negative, neutral, and ambiguous. It helped, but it still wasn't divided up enough for our liking.

So, I further sorted them into subgroups of similar approaches or effects. Yup, that helped. Admittedly there was a certain amount of subjectivity to my final subgroupings. Other safety or risk professionals or researchers may make different choices resulting in subtle changes within these subgroups.

Now, let's go back to my original question in the title of this blog – how would others describe your group's safety culture? Try this – take a look through my list here [URL link]. I've ordered them first alphabetically, then by categories, and lastly by subgroups. I suggest you start by skimming the alphabetic list. Only then, perhaps look at the categories and/or subgroups.

Here's a good thought-starter. Choose just one to start. Then consider how strong of a rating you'd give it from 1-10 (I'm leaving out zero because it'd be non-existent, and you should choose a different descriptor).

If it has a greater value, assign it in the 6-10 range. And if it has a lesser value, rate it from 1-5. Then choose a handful of others and rate them, too. Then stop. Now consider how others would rate each for your lab, group, etc. Interesting isn't it. You may want to use this exercise in your lab, office, or other groups or teams.

Next: Leadership – what do we all want?

Previous: Teams and the One Thing That Makes Them Successful Management author and guru Peter Drucker said, "Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing." I've always liked this quote, especially when it comes to safety and risk. It sums up where we need to focus our safety culture efforts – doing the right things.

I was chatting with a colleague who directs organizational performance and is a certified six-sigma master black belt – expertise that focuses on maximizing efficiencies. We were comparing our two areas and the natural commonalities between the two. Neither of us was surprised by how much the two circles in our Venn diagram overlapped when it came to process improvement.

The stark difference in the severity of outcomes struck us as we discussed Efficiency vs. effectiveness. As he put it, "Jon, when processes in my world focus too much on efficiencies over effectiveness, the worst things that happen are we have convoluted business practices, upset customers, and wasting our limited resources. Whereas in your world when efficiencies are emphasized over effectiveness, bad things happen – people get hurt, and some die. It's the problem of pencil-whipping the checklist – it may seem efficient, but it's hardly effective at the outcomes you need – lower risks." He was aware of some of the sad tragedies in academia.

It says something that a non-safety, organizational performance professional would notice this difference as naturally as I did. We spoke the same language despite working in different areas. It's this language that he and I both use – how can we be more effective and achieve the outcomes we desire? The more we concentrate on how we can be effective at lowering risks, the more likely we'll have the outcomes we desire – a true culture of safety.

Be effective and strive for the right outcomes.

Next: Measure what you want to see (and you'll be rewarded with more of it!)

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Previous: Why call this blog the Won (1) Minute Warning?

It’s safety culture. Did you guess it? I’m not surprised; I mean, look at my former titles (official and informal) - both have “safety culture” in them.

But why? Good question.

Let’s back up. Just what is safety culture anyway? Culture is often described as “group norms and behaviors.” Still, a good heuristic is “how we do things here”.¹ So, safety culture is “group safety norms and behaviors” or “how we do safety here.”

Why focus only on safety culture anyway? Is it that important? Because we are horrible multi-taskers, have the attention span of a squirrel, and yeah, it is that important. Maybe even more so. Here’s how.

How much of a rule follower are you? Likely not much if you’re average. Know what? Me neither.

Surprised? Don’t be. When’s the last time you (or I) sped, rode our bike through a stop sign, or didn’t wear our safety glasses as required. Why? Risk.

We know it when we see it – and when we don’t. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating breaking rules.

Imagine instead that a group had a set of values that translated into behaviors and thus group norms. And imagine that the values were for everyone’s safety. Imagine. Are you with me? Einstein said that imagination was more important than knowledge.²

Picasso said that if we can imagine it, we can create it.³ Just as we do with our research. Imagine.

Any group (lab, team, office, program, or an entire college) can create these group norms and behaviors for our safety. Not because of a rule – because it’s how we do safety here.

Imagine.

Next: Safety culture – What descriptors would others use to describe yours?

Sources:

¹ Elaine Cullen, Ph.D., CDC Researcher. ASSE conference presentation and discussions.

² https://todayinsci.com/E/Einstein_Albert/EinsteinAlbert-ImaginationQuote800px.htm

³ https://www.pablopicasso.org/quotes.jsp

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To be honest, "the two-minute warning" was already taken by several others and were invariably about U.S. football. So, as I sat at my laptop pondering a new name, I thought, "Go briefer, Jon. I wonder if 'One Minute Warning' is taken?" It wasn't.

Okay, but how many words can the average person read in a minute? And can I write a brief blog that short that's also useful and value-added?

Good questions. So, I went looking for the data.

It turns out the average person can read about 200-250 words in a minute. College students seem to read about 300 per minute, and presumably, PIs likely read the same.

But the topics may be themes that cause us to pause and rethink. I aim for around 250-300 words or so.

All right, but what kind of warning am I giving? Any. In football, the game stops with two minutes to go. Life doesn't work that way. But if we paused for just a minute to reconsider our risks, we might avert tragedies great and injuries small.

Okay, but why "won" and not "one"?

I love wordplay and puns. In safety, I have wins and losses. A win is when we have a positive outcome for a safety problem.

When we have the privilege of helping a student make it through safely, that's a win. When we can't help them make it, and they suffer, that's a loss.

Some wins are big; some are small.

The same goes for losses. My win-loss record is 6-2.

Read on.

272 words - nailed it. Stay tuned.

Next: If I Can Focus on Only One Thing

Sources:

https://www.irisreading.com/what-is-the-average-reading-speed/

https://www.quora.com/How-many-words-can-the-average-person-read-in-one-minute

"

Previous: Effectiveness vs. Efficiency - Let's Not Confuse the Two

Peter Drucker said, “If you want it, measure it. If you can’t measure it, forget it.” John E. Jones said, “What gets measured gets done.” Or if you prefer, Robin S. Sharma said, “What gets measured gets improved.”

There are many variations on this theme.

So, what is it that we want or want to get done or improved?

I think it’s a safe workplace. But what makes for a safe workplace? Well, two things – safe conditions and safe behaviors. Oh sure, there’s more to it than that. But behaviors and conditions are a good enough start.

Which are typically easier to control – behaviors or conditions? I think you’ll agree that conditions are generally easier to achieve and maintain. It’s relatively easy to install a guard. And once in place, it tends to stay there. And if one day it’s missing, I’d say it’s from an unsafe behavior – wouldn’t you?

So, behaviors. Safe behaviors. Like what? Well, how’s assessing risk as a start? Or discussing safe procedures? Encouraging others to put on a forgotten PPE? I’ve heard these the most over the years. Behaviors – safe or unsafe ones – are hard to measure. But they are possible.

Instead, what gets measured as our intended outcome? Negative outcomes – or rather an absence of them. Like what? Injuries, exposures, lost days, illnesses, incidents, their costs, and even deaths.

It’s odd when you say it – our intended outcomes are not to have adverse effects. Sure, these absence management metrics exist, but how do we get them (or I suppose not get them)? Behaviors. Safe behaviors. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Safe behaviors become safe habits. And safe habits become norms. And norms become our safety culture.

Measure what you want to get or improve.

Next: Leading vs. lagging indicators – which matter more?

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Previous: Instead of Safety First We Should Be Saying ...“Hey Jon, what’s the matter with talking about safety?” Good question. It’s not enough, that’s what. We need to move this discussion and our language forward. We need to discuss safety culture instead—each and every time. Instead of a safety committee, it’s a safety culture committee. Our safety efforts become our safety culture efforts. And safety training is now safety culture training. Language matters, and repetition leads to referential validity (the more it’s said, the more real it becomes).

It works. I did this at a previous position. Granted, my role facilitated it, but it was my choice to turn every phrase into an opportunity to say, “safety culture.” At first, it seemed a bit unnatural, even forced – and I suppose it was. But after a while, it was perfectly natural – for me and others. It rolled right off my tongue, and I noticed that others were using it, too.

And why not? If we want to advance to a way (a zen?) of safety culture, we need to use every opportunity to discuss it – to make it real for people. As much as safety culture represents group norms and behaviors, it won’t just happen independently. It takes purposeful effort on our part. Or parts – all of our parts. We all have to be in the game, helping to make it happen.

Do your part. Instead of just safety, try using safety culture. See what happens.

Next: And now that we’re talking about safety culture, we should also be discussing …

Previous: Measure What You Want To See (and You'll Be Rewarded with More Of It)

Do you drive? Or perhaps ride a bike? Me too. When I’m driving or riding, I look ahead – I need to see where I’m going. Oh sure, I’ll glance in the rearview mirror or turn and look behind my bike even while going forward. But if I drive by looking backwards, I’m going to crash.

Trust me – not paying attention to what’s in front will lead to a bad outcome.

So, why the heck do we drive our safety programs by looking backwards? It doesn’t make sense. If you’re wondering, “Jon, what are you talking about?” Let me help.

Lagging indicators. They’re the things that we tend to focus on and keep track of the most. We drive our programs using them. Oh, you know them – they’re anything that is behind us, they are usually after an event, they lag. Want some examples? Sure.

They include injuries, exposures, unsafe conditions, lost days, illnesses, incidents, findings, fines, and even deaths.

What should we use to drive our programs instead? Leading indicators. They are ahead of the event. They often represent a positive in the future, such as safe behaviors. Remember my driving analogy? My leading indicators are being focused on the road, paying attention to traffic, avoiding others, indicating my intent to turn or change lanes, and watching my velocity.

For a safe workplace, we often think of leading indicators as the safe behaviors we hope for. These often include consistent use of PPE, engaging in safety and risk conversations, providing safety mentoring, creating safety initiatives, performing our own risk assessments, etc. All of these occur before events. In fact, they are what prevent adverse events from happening. Are they challenging to track? Yup.

But are they worth it?

Absolutely.

Drive or ride while looking ahead, not behind. Get out in front – pay attention to, encourage, and track leading indicators.

Jonathan

For more information on leading vs. lagging indicators, watch the

Next: Instead of “safety first,” we should be saying …

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Previous: Leading vs. Lagging Indicators‚ Which Matter More?You’ve seen it before.

It’s everywhere. At entrances to sites, on reminder signs, and company swag.

“Safety first!” Uh-huh, sure. When you got some coffee, shaved, drove or rode, walked into work, started your workday, etc., did you say to yourself, “safety first”? Or at least, did you think of safety before the task?

No? Yeah, me neither. So, if it’s so important, then why don’t we do it?

It’s not natural. We have a task to accomplish, so we focus on our task at hand. It’s perfectly natural, too. If we don’t think “safety first,” why do we expect workers to do so? Good question. Likely, it’s become a catchphrase that’s been repeated so many times, we believe it (referential validity). It’s in our safety lexicon. And it feels good.

So, what would make more sense? What is more natural? What might be accomplishable? “Safety with …”. It’s what we want people to do. While you’re performing your task, please incorporate safe practices during it. “Safety with …”. Let’s try it out and see how it might work.

Safety with research.

Safety with construction. Safety with driving. Safety with work. Did you see how it flows so easily? And it makes sense. Engage in safe behaviors while performing the task or assignment. Only that’s too long – so instead, safety with. And it embeds safe behaviors into our processes, which is really what most safety folks want. “Hey Jon, while you’re on your daily 5-mile bike ride, please engage in safe behaviors!”

Okay, sure – that I can do!

And did you notice that “safety” still comes first? From now on, it’s “safety with.”

Next: Let’s stop talking about mere safety – instead, let’s discuss …

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Previous: Let's Stop Talking About Mere Safety Instead Let's Discuss...Risk. Or, more importantly, risk perceptions. And while we’re at it, let’s change it to “risk culture.”

In our fourth series of micro-blogs, “Risk is a 4-letter word”, we obviously discuss risk a lot. But let’s focus on the relationships between risk (and risk perceptions) and safety culture.

Briefly to frame risk – it’s the byproduct of consequence (a negative outcome) and probability (its odds of occurring). While safety is binary (I’m safe or I’m not), the risk is fluid across two or three ranges (the third one sometimes added is exposure).

Discussing risk is paradoxical. Risk is more complex than safety. So, in that regard, it should be tougher to discuss. But because of the many factors across the two or three ranges, it gives us many opportunities to talk about them. So let’s.

When we have thoughtful discussions on a topic, it adds to our frame and our ways of doing things.

Our norms. And thus, our safety culture. If risk gives us space to have conversations, risk perceptions just increase that space even more.

We all have varying risk perceptions. And we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about them because that’s what is at the heart of so many of our challenges – the differences between our risk perceptions.

As I write, we are still living in the land of covid-19. If there was ever an opportunity to discuss and listen (and I do mean discuss – not argue or force upon others!) of our different risk perceptions, this is it.

So, let’s talk about risk perceptions, which risks are worth taking, and our risk culture because life is about risk and makes it worth living.

Coming Soon: If I were to say, “safety culture initiatives,” what would come to mind?

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