In the movies, when you see a shady character slip into a corner store, stick an item under his jacket, and make a beeline for the exit, you expect to see the shopkeeper chase him at full speed down the street.

But in the real world, a scene like this could cause an employee to fall, get hit by a car, or worse. The shoplifter could have a weapon or accomplices waiting.

At Kowalski’s Markets, a local chain of grocery stores in the Minneapolis area, Security Manager Scott Nelson advises employees never to chase a shoplifter.

“I always start by telling employees that there’s nothing in any of these stores that’s worth anybody getting hurt or risking injury,” he said. “I want to stress safety because obviously, our customers’ safety and our employees’ safety is our first concern.”

Instead, Nelson advises employees just give exceptional customer service to everyone, even to those they suspect might be stealing.

“If you greet them with customer service, they know you’re onto them and they typically drop the stuff and leave,” he said.

At times when there aren’t as many employees and customers around, Nelson advises staff not to overstock shelves with the pricier items that typically attract thieves and to put those items in visible places.

Even if these tactics don’t work, with video cameras, other security measures and good relationships with local police, Nelson can usually catch thieves after the fact, so chasing a suspect is never necessary, he said.

“I appreciate that employees sometimes just want to help, but I always say, ‘We care about you more than that thing he was stealing,'” he said. “My first concern for all our stores is that safety comes first.”

For other safety tips related to retail stores, see these resources:

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ergonomic solutions for retailers
• A guide to robbery prevention and response from the Portland Police Bureau

This is not intended to serve as legal advice for individual fact-specific legal cases or as a legal basis for your employment practices.

By Mike Fetting, CSP

A burned ear drum. Just the thought makes you cringe, doesn’t it?

It’s as painful as it sounds, and it’s one of the injuries that can result when welding slag flies into your ear at high speed.

This can result in tinnitus, ear infections, balance problems and permanent hearing loss. It may require surgery.

These injuries can occur anytime someone is welding without ear protection, and the risk is especially high when a welder is working at an odd angle, such as underneath a wheel well.

Those who weld on the job suffer these types of injuries more often than you might think, but many don’t know to wear protection to avoid an accident.

The good news is it isn’t hard for welders to protect themselves from hot slag. To avoid a painful and sometimes lifelong injury:

• Wear fire-resistant foam or silicone custom-molded earplugs, or ear muffs while welding. Often grinding precedes the welding job, so you might need them for noise protection, too.
• Wear a full-face welder’s helmet along with a cloth welder’s cap that covers your ears and neck.

Other resources:

• Welders risk ear damage from hot slag – Hazard Alert from WorkSafe BC
• Welding and torching safety Supervisor Initiated Training
• Welding safety 5-minute Solution

If you cook often, you’ve probably been burned once or twice in your own kitchen. Now, imagine working in a kitchen where the pots are bigger, the heat is stronger and the pressure is higher. It’s easy to see why food service workers are at high risk for burns. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6,910 workers in the accommodation and food services industry lost time from work in 2017 due to burns caused by heat.  

Common causes of burns in professional kitchens

Food service employees can get burned in a number of ways, including:

• Spilling hot water or hot oil on the skin
• Being engulfed by burning-hot steam
• Slipping and falling while carrying something hot
• Pulling a hot item out of the microwave without the proper protective equipment or lifting its lid too soon
• Touching a hot oven rack

How can kitchen workers prevent burns?

Follow these tips to prevent burns in restaurant and other kitchen environments:

• Use personal protective equipment, including forearm protection
• Use two people to handle awkward pans
• Use a cart to move hot objects
• Pay close attention to the task at hand
• When working with fryers, fill baskets no more than halfway, shake off excess ice crystals before placing fryer baskets in hot oil and follow directions when adding or disposing of fat or oil
• Use caution when preparing hot drinks or using machines that dispense hot liquids, keeping your hands out of the areas where liquids are dispensed
• Never use a wet towel as a potholder
• Clean up spills immediately and wear slip-resistant shoes to prevent slips and falls

This video from WorkSafeBC features food service workers talking about how they prevent burns and scalds:

Additional resources on preventing kitchen worker burns

• Supervisor Initiated Training: Burns — Food service
• Burns: First aid from the Mayo Clinic
• Burns and scalds from OSHA
• Easy Dos & Don’ts to prevent burns from OSHA

This is not intended to serve as legal advice for individual fact-specific legal cases or as a legal basis for your employment practices.

Technology is rapidly changing. Have your company’s driving policies kept up?

If you have employees who drive as part of their jobs, your driving policy should address cell phone use. Drivers interacting with cell phones have a 17 percent higher risk of being involved in a crash or near crash, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety . Most of the increased risk is attributable to reaching for, answering or dialing a cell phone.

The risk of a crash or near crash is five times higher for drivers who are texting, according to the institute. There were 3,450 traffic fatalities in 2016 due to distraction-related crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration , and 42 percent of drivers admit to reading texts or emails while behind the wheel, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association .

Cell phone laws

Awareness of the connection between car crashes and cell phone use is increasing. Many states are starting to pass laws prohibiting certain kinds of cell phone use while driving.

Starting on August 1, 2019, the use of hand-held cell phones while driving is banned in Minnesota. Drivers are required to use a hands-free device or voice commands if they are using a cell phone. The only exceptions are to obtain emergency assistance, report emergencies, hazards or crimes and report that a person’s life or safety is in danger. Drivers in authorized emergency vehicles are also exempt while performing official duties.

SFM’s other core states also have cell phone laws, although they are all more lenient.

In Wisconsin, drivers with a probationary license or instruction permit are prohibited from using both hand-held and hands-free devices except in case of emergency. Wisconsin has also banned use of hand-held devices in construction zones, and all texting while driving is prohibited.

South Dakota also bans texting while driving, as well as hand-held cell phone use for drivers under 18.

Nebraska and Iowa have both banned texting while driving.

Distracted driving policy examples

A total employer cell phone ban covers: handheld and hands-free devices, all employees, all company vehicles, all company cell phones and all work-related communication, even in a personal vehicle using a personal cell phone.

Here are a few examples of policies you can draw from to address employee cell phone use while driving:

• Sample cell phone policy
  This policy, which SFM reprinted with permission from the Society of Human Resource Management, states that employees may not talk or text on their cell phones while driving for work, regardless of whether they use hands-free devices. Employees are required to pull into a rest area or parking lot and stop their vehicles before placing or accepting cell phone calls.
• National Safety Council sample distracted driving policy
  This policy (available by downloading the free Cell Phone Policy Kit) adds that employees are not to use voice features in vehicles.
• City of Minneapolis Distracted Driving Procedures
  This companion to the city’s policy spells out the meaning of “distraction,” breaking it down into cognitive, physical and visual distraction. It even tells employees what constitutes an acceptable place to pull over and use their phone.

Note that employers have been held liable for crashes caused by their employees’ cell phone use.

Hands-free devices not enough to prevent distracted driving

Distraction comes in different forms, according to the organization EndDD :

• Manual distraction: Taking your hands off the wheel
• Visual distraction: Taking your eyes off the road
• Cognitive distraction: Letting your mind wander from the task of driving

Research shows the cognitive distraction of talking or texting while driving is dangerous, even when drivers have both hands on the wheel. According to 2013 research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety , these mental distractions slow reaction times and cause drivers to miss important visual cues.

Research from the University of Iowa showed that subjects engaged in answering true and false questions, intended to mimic the distraction level of a phone conversation, took twice as long to look at new objects on the screen in front of them than those who were not engaged in answering questions.

This video from the National Safety Council  highlights why a cell phone policy that covers hands-free devices is so important.

Training your employees on cell phone policy

After your company has the right policies in place, it’s important to make sure employees follow them.

Our 5-minute solution safety training talk on cell phone use provides talking points you can share with your employees including:

• Cell phone users have significantly poorer reaction time.
• To stay safe, eliminate all cell phone use while driving including taking calls, sending or reading text messages, sending or reading email and surfing the web.
• Cell phone laws apply while at a stop sign or stop light as well.

Training employees on the dangers of distracted driving really does make a difference. A study of health care workers showed a 50 percent decrease in distracted driving following an awareness campaign.

Additional resources on safe driving

For more information on safe driving, check out these downloadable resources:

• “Driving isn’t what it used to be” CompTalk
• Sample cell phone policy CompTalk
• Cell phone use 5-Minute Solution
• National Safety Council Cell Phone Policy Kit
• National Safety Council distracted driving page
• Governors Highway Safety Association page on distracted driving
• Eight tips for defensive driving

This is not intended to serve as legal advice for individual fact-specific legal cases or as a legal basis for your employment practices.

Follow these tips from our resident safety super hero, Skip, to stay more aware of potential hazards in the workplace.

1. Defend yourself against workplace accidents by being aware of hazards.
2. Be a good example. Practice safety in every aspect of your job.
3. Lift properly – Have a staggered stance. Keep the load close. Keep your head up. Don’t twist.
4. Join your company’s safety committee, or participate in a meeting.
5. Mentor new employees on safety.
6. Slow your pace and focus on your task. Don’t be distracted.
7. Hang new safety posters and replace old ones.
8. Help investigate an accident or near miss.
9. Participate in a safety inspection of your work area.
10. Acknowledge coworkers for safe actions, such as cleaning up spills or wearing personal protective equipment.
11. Conduct a weekly safety talk for your team.
12. Wear slip-resistant footwear when working in wet environments.
13. Inspect equipment before use, such as ladders and power tools.
14. Report unsafe conditions such as broken equipment, leaks, insufficient lighting, improper labeling of chemical containers, and unsafe work practices.
15. If a situation feels wrong or unsafe, stop what you are doing and talk with a supervisor about your concerns. Don’t put yourself at risk.

For resources to share the safety message with your employees, search SFM’s safety materials or visit the “Safety” section of our website for other great safety-related resources. 

When an employee suffers a work injury and is returning to work, first and foremost, make sure the employee understands the importance of working within medical restrictions to avoid re-injury.

Once restrictions have been lifted, there are still things you can do to make sure the employee is not re-injured on the job:

• Empower the employee to speak up. Ask for feedback about the employee’s comfort level returning to regular duty. If the employee is concerned about re-injury, he or she may not be ready to go back to regular duties.
• Discuss ways to prevent similar incidents in the future. Talk with the employee about the root cause of the injury, and find ways to eliminate any environmental or behavioral hazards. Don’t take any chances of the same incident happening again.
• Point out the not-so-obvious. For example, a shoulder injury might limit an employee’s ability to catch himself or herself in a slip-and-fall incident. This kind of thing is surprisingly common. Being injured is an unfamiliar state. With it comes new sensations and limitations employees might not be aware of.
• Check in with the employee regularly. Doing the same job tasks an employee did before they were injured may aggravate the same issues and cause re-injury. If the injury was due to repetitive stress, returning to the same job is probably not an option.
• Promote job readiness. Work readiness is important for all workers, not just those who have been re-injured.

• • Encourage employees to stretch before beginning work, if it fits within their medical restrictions. For employees working in a labor-intensive work environment, stretching can help gain flexibility, reduce strains and sprains and enhance overall physical fitness and help avoid re-injury.
  • Make proper lifting techniques a priority.
  • Reinforce wellness and positive life habits. Support awareness and application of proper eating, adequate sleep and regular exercise. Healthy employees are productive employees.

Hiring new employees always comes with certain risks.

Maybe they won’t fit in. Or they’ll decide they didn’t want the job after all.

But have you thought about the risks to them — to their safety?

According to SFM claims data, more than half of workplace injuries involve employees who are in their first five years of employment at their workplace.

Why do new employees get injured?

Recent data shows that as the unemployment rate drops, the number of new workers increases, along with the percentage of claims with less than a year of employee tenure. When unemployment is low, there is a smaller pool of job candidates to choose from, and your new hires might not stick around as long.

New workers can be more susceptible to injury because they often haven’t developed the necessary skills to safely do their work. For those who work in manual labor jobs, they may not have built up the muscle strength, flexibility and endurance needed to complete the jobs.

Additionally, open jobs tend to be the heavier, riskier ones, and so inexperienced workers get their start doing the most challenging work. This can result in fast turnover and injuries. It happens across many different job fields, including manual labor and education.

Rather than having new employees fill the open, difficult jobs, it’s best to start them off slowly. Bring them in to the easiest jobs and then move them to harder jobs once they’ve had time to adapt. Your workers with the most experience have been trained and conditioned to do the more challenging jobs, and so they are less likely to be injured.

Focus on good hiring practices

When you have an open position that you’ve been struggling to fill, it can be tempting to relax some of your hiring practices in order to find someone to fill the job.

But lowering your standards could result in hiring someone who isn’t suited to the job, which increases the likelihood of injuries and employee turnover.

“In my experience, it’s better to endure times when you have positions sitting open and get creative about how you get jobs done, rather than picking someone you know isn’t right,” said SFM Loss Prevention Technical Leader Lee Wendel. “Otherwise, you end up adding people on your staff that you know don’t meet the same standards as the rest of your employees.”

If your experienced employees think you aren’t holding new employees to the same standard, it can affect morale and bring negativity into the workplace, Wendel said. It’s better to have a robust hiring process and stick to it.

When you’re hiring, keep these best practices in mind*:

• Have a formal application and a current job description that includes the physical requirements of the job.
• Have multiple people interview the candidate and conduct multiple interviews, including questions about safety.
• Be thorough when conducting background checks.** Include checking references, verification of education credentials and legal status, pre-employment physicals and drug testing.
• Keep all documentation following the hire, including application forms, job descriptions and payroll and attendance records.

Once your new hire has been at the job for a few weeks, evaluate the situation and ask yourself if you would hire them again. If not, work backward through your hiring process to see what you can change to avoid the problem in the future.

Make sure prospective hires understand the job

The interview process is often focused around getting to know the job candidate. But once you think you’ve found the right person, it’s important to make sure that individual gets to know all the job duties before accepting the position. The alternative is hiring new employees who aren’t prepared to do the work required because they didn’t know what to expect.

In some cases, new employees may stop showing up to work after finding they have to perform certain tasks they weren’t expecting and don’t want to do. Or employees who do keep showing up might be more likely to be injured, because they weren’t prepared or were less dedicated to learning the proper procedures than someone who knew what to expect.

“It’s important that employers give prospective employees a realistic view of what the job is,” Wendel said. “Show them someone doing the job while it’s happening, if possible.”

Create an in-depth safety training program

The best way to make sure your new workers avoid injury is to give them proper training.

If you’ve been understaffed, or still are, it can be easy to cut corners on safety training, but it’s important to start safety training on day one so that your new hires know what to expect going forward.

“Think about preparing your employees to work safely in broad terms,” Wendel said. “It’s being familiar with the hazards, it’s being trained for the hazards and it’s knowing how to avoid situations that result in injury.”

Your training program should include the following:

• Get them familiar with the dangers of the equipment they’re using and the processes they’re performing.
• Let them know not to expect to perform at the same level as more experienced workers until they’ve accumulated more skill, experience and knowledge.
• Teach them the best practices right away that they would otherwise learn from experience.
• Make sure they understand the hazards present in the workplace, including ones that may not be obvious, such as paint vapors, flammable vapors or carbon monoxide.
• Enforce the use of personal protective equipment and make sure they know how to match the correct equipment with the job they’re performing.
• Teach them about how their jobs might intersect with others they share space with.

Remember that training isn’t going to all sink in on the first day. You need to periodically revisit safety with your employees to make sure the important pieces stay fresh in their minds.

Pay attention to what causes injuries

Your injury trends might reveal a weak spot in your current safety training. If you notice that a certain type of injury is repeatedly occurring, or if employees with a certain job tend to be injured more often, this could be a clue that something isn’t being covered in training.

SFM claims data shows that workers with less than a year of experience are most likely to receive sprains and strains. This could be a signal that they aren’t getting enough training on safe lifting techniques. Implement weight limits for manual lifting and remind your employees to lift from a position of power: keep the head up, bend at the knees, keep the load close and remember “nose follows toes” to keep from twisting.

Or maybe you need to reevaluate how heavy objects are stored. Keeping them between knee and shoulder height can reduce the risk of back injuries from lifting. There is also equipment that can assist with lifting heavier objects.

Take the time to perform a workplace analysis. When reviewing your previous injury records, use a checklist to make sure you aren’t overlooking any hazards. You can create your own checklist based on what you observe at your workplace, or download SFM’s workplace analysis supervisor checklist from our resource catalog.

Once you’ve identified problem areas, you can implement changes to your safety training program to correct oversights. Seek advice from your contacts at SFM or search the resource catalog.

Comprehensive hiring practices and safety training are more important than ever. Finding and training new hires can be a challenge, but it’s one that pays off.

*This is not intended to serve as legal advice for individual fact-specific legal cases or as a legal basis for your employment practices.

**Some of these items may not be permissible until a conditional offer of employment has been made. Be sure to consult your employment law attorney.