Joint Safety Institute Administrator’s Report

JSI Unveils Multi-Year Initiatives Plan

By Jim Barham, JSI AdministratorBarham

In October, 2003, the Joint Safety Institute (JSI) administrators unveiled a multi-year initiative plan for its Trustees. The plan has both short- and long term-goals, which include:

Improving Worker Safety Tour Group effectiveness

Worker Safety Tour Groups are making a significant difference in communicating and discussing safety throughout the Department of Water & Power. They definitely are helping to improve our safety culture. In February, we will meet with groups of about 40 Tour members at a time in order to discuss the Worker Safety Tour and Safety Actions Request forms. Additionally, Karl Leist, from Safety Peak Performance, will be conducting a refresher course on how to do Worker Safety Tours.

Later this year, Chuck Kokoska of DWP and I will conduct focus meetings with small groups of Worker Safety Tour Group participants in order to hear their successes and problems, so that we can get a clearer idea on how we can help make the tours even more successful.

Increased support and skills development for Supervisors & Lead Workers

Because the JSI recognizes that supervisors are key in modeling safety, as well as being the foundation of any good safety plan, we are targeting them for additional workshops that will help them develop effective safety skills, especially in conducting safety and tailgate meetings. These events will also include journey-level lead workers. This is because today’s journey lead worker is tomorrow’s supervisor/manager.

We also hope to improve communications between the JSI and supervisors at DWP, and help supply them with safety resources that they may need in order to do their job more effectively.

Improved Safety communications

We are working on a two-day communications workshop with safety peak performance for all worker safety tour group members, and safety and training personnel. In order to conduct a successful safety tour, members must be able to communicate clearly with workers. These workshops should help Tour members develop the communication skills that are necessary to conduct better tours.

The JSI will start paying for the “Safety & The Supervisor” newsletter, instead of passing the cost along to the Business Units. The newsletter is a great resource for supervisors, and provides valuable and timely safety information, along with great ideas for tail gate/safety meetings.

The JSI plans on utilizing another resource: “safety speakers” who have amazing stories on why everyone should be thinking/living safety 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These speakers have lived through some very bad accidents, and can really focus workers on what happens to them and their families when someone is involved in a serious accident. We are planning a presentation by a noted “safety speaker” sometime early this year.

Improved defensive-driving awareness

Probably the most dangerous thing we do every day is drive to and from work. Further, if you have a job at the DWP that requires you to drive when you get to work, your daily risk is even greater. The JSI would like to enhance our DWP driving skills by providing defensive-driving events that may include speakers from the California Highway Patrol and a defensive-driving fair with, among other things, computerized driving vans. The first step is to conduct a driving-needs assessment in order to determine what each business unit’s driving skill-needs are at the present time.

Ergonomic awareness

One of our long-term goals is to review ergonomic injuries that have occurred at DWP in order to find out where are the most urgent needs. We want to focus specifically on how to better use tools to control injuries, and how to recognize that having the right ergonomic tool can make a big difference in preventing injuries.

We also plan on placing an elevated emphasis on ergonomic training in our workshops.

Improve incident accident prevention and investigation

Another long-term goal is to provide workers, supervisors, and managers with the training to conduct incident/accident investigations. When this training is completed, preset teams of workers/ managers/supervisors can then be established in order to conduct incident investigations. This is a good way to get everyone involved in better determining why incidents/accident occur. Armed with this information, perhaps we can prevent these types of accidents or incidents from happening in the future.