How is the Housekeeping at Your Job Site?

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  As you all know, we recently completed our 4th and final quarterly safety meeting of 2012.  There was a total of 98 employees that attended our recent safety meeting of which the safety topic was "Slips, Trips & Falls - Housekeeping."  First of all, we want to thank the 98 employees that attended the safety meeting.  We hope that the meeting was beneficial to you in the battle against slip, trip and fall type injuries.  We had a lot of discussion at the meeting about poor housekeeping hazards and somethings that we as a team can do about them.  Please remember that if your job site is a mess and no one is helping to get the job site cleaned up, please discuss this with your Superintendent or with our Safety Director so we can assist in the matter.  What we don't want is for our employees to have to continue to work in cluttered areas that could lead to slip, trip and fall types of injuries as these type of injuries are preventable.  Sometimes it is just a matter of communication between our company and the general contractor to help get the place cleaned up.  If you are working at a cluttered job site, please don't just do nothing.  Be pro-active and communicate the problem to us.  Should you have any questions related to safety, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689 or you can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com.

Have a Safe Day!

Quarterly Safety Make-Up Meeting Wednesday, 12/12/12 at 4:00pm

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  As you all know, we had our 4th quarterly safety meeting of 2012 on Saturday, 12/1/12.  The safety topic was Slips, Trips & Falls and Poor Housekeeping.  We hope that the meeting was beneficial to you and provided you with some tips to help prevent you from sustaining a slip, trip and fall type injury.

We had 78 employees in attendance.  We want to thank all of you who attended.  This shows that you are a team player, that you care about your safety, the company and others working around you.

For those of you that could not attend, the quarterly safety make-up meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, 12/12/12 at 4:00pm.  The meeting will be held at our office location at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL.  If you are planning on attending, you need to contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham, no later than Tuesday, 12/11/12 to notify him you are attending.  We need to know the head count ahead of time to help determine the room size, chair rental needs, etc. You can reach peter at (847) 526-7477 or by e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com.

Hope to see you at the make-up meeting!

Have a Safe Day!

Safety Meeting - Saturday, 12/1/12!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  I hope everyone had a relaxing and joy-filled Thanksgiving with your loved ones.  This is just a reminder that our 4th and final quarterly safety meeting for 2012 is being held on Saturday, December 1st at 7:00am. The meeting will be at our usual meeting location at our office/shop located at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. in Barrington, IL.  We are going to be talking about safety at the job site including, housekeeping, Slips/Trips & Falls, and other safety related items.  Our 2012 safety goal for our quarterly safety meeting attendance is to be at a 75% show up rate or better.  After 3 quarterly safety meetings, we are 1% below goal as we are at a 74% show up rate.  Please help us to reach and exceed this important goal by attending the 12/1/12 safety meeting.  Please help spread the word to all of our employees.

See you at the meeting!  

Safety Pete

Missing Safety Pin on Scissor Lift Safety Rail!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  Please see the photo below.  One of our employees was about to use a scissor lift so he could perform some taping tasks on a wall.  Before getting on the scissor lift, he performed a safety inspection of the lift and he came across a missing safety pin on one of the safety rails.  In place of the missing safety pin, he found a pencil.  Apparently someone had lost the original safety pin and inserted a pencil in its place.

Had the taper not inspected the scissor lift and found that a safety pin was missing, this could have possibly lead to a serious injury or fatality.  If the taper or another employee had leaned on the scissor lift safety rail while the safety pin was missing, the safety rail could have failed. We don't know who inserted the pencil in place of the safety pin.  It could have been done by another contractor or by one of our employees.  We will probably never know the answer to that.

This is exactly why all employees are required to inspect their equipment such as aerial lifts, scaffolding, ladders, etc. prior to use.  Our aerial lift provider was notified of the missing safety pin and they delivered one on the same day so this hazard has been rectified.

Great job - Julian Nunez on identifying and reporting this hazard.  Your actions may have prevented a serious injury or fatality.

Have a Safe Day!

Reporting Near Miss Incidents - We Can All Learn From Them

On 10/25/12, one of our employees had a near miss incident that could have led to an injury.  A framer advised that he was down on his knees using a hammer to scrape and chisel away the concrete floor to remove nails and debris so they could install bottom track.  He said that there was some yellow plastic embedded in the old concrete floor but it was difficult to make out exactly what the plastic strip was.  As he was chiseling away to get the yellow plastic strip removed from the concrete floor, it blew up.  It happened to be a strip of yellow shot from a fastener gun.  The framer said that gun powder, dust and probably small pieces of concrete debris flew up into his face and his arms.  He said that he was not bleeding and not in actual pain, however, he could feel it on his face and arms where the debris flew into him.  The framer said that thank goodness he was wearing safety glasses because you never know what might have happened.  He said he had dust all over his face except for where the safety glasses were.  The framer said that he would not require medical care, however, he just wanted to report it the incident.

The concrete floor was poured during a previous year’s renovation and the yellow shot strip was left behind embedded in the concrete floor prior to us starting work at this project. 

Moving forward, our employees at the project don’t know if there are anymore live shots in the yellow strip.  We advised our employees to not touch the yellow shot strip any further and that we would notify the general contractor of the incident and ask for them to have the yellow shot strip removed. 

A few hours later, I called the framer back to see how he was doing.  The framer advised that he is fine and that his face and arms feel better than when we talked earlier.  The framer further advised that a laborer from the general contractor removed the embedded yellow shot from the concrete floor so this hazard is over and done. 

What can we take away from the near miss incident?  That wearing safety glasses may have prevented a serious eye injury or at least prevented our employee from needing medical treatment on his eyes.  Anytime an employee is using a tool to chip away at concrete, safety glasses are required to be worn. The positive that came out of this story is a 1^st hand account from an employee who was doing the right thing and wearing safety glasses when performing a task that would require them and the safety glasses did their job and protected his eyes.  So if you find yourself using tools to chip away at materials, you need to wear safety glasses.  Also, if you are chipping away at something that you aren’t exactly sure what it is, seek out a 2^nd or 3^rd opinion before proceeding. 

Thank goodness our employee is o.k. after this incident!

Quarterly Safety Meeting Set for 12/1/12!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employee:  This is just a notice to advise that we have scheduled our 4th and final quarterly safety meeting of 2012 on Saturday, December 1st at 7:00am.  We have not yet selected the safety meeting topic.  We will keep updates coming as we get closer to the meeting date.  Please mark your calendars and plan on attending.  Our quarterly safety meetings are what set the tone for our whole safety culture.  Please help spread the word so we can obtain a 100% turn out at the meeting. If you have any questions regarding the upcoming safety meeting, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham.  You can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com.

Have a Safe Day!

2 Weeks Left in October - Our Safest Year on Record!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  Counting today, we have 2 weeks left in the month of October at which time, at the end of the month, we end another fiscal year at International Decorators.  If we can work the next 2 weeks in an injury-free manner, we will have completed our safest year on record over the past 13 years.  A lot can happen in a 2 week period so we cannot let our guard down.  We are reaching out to everyone to heighten everyone's awareness to do everything in your power to not get injured and/or to stop someone from getting injured.  If you see someone committing an unsafe act or if you see someone doing something the wrong way which has the potential to cause injury, we are asking you to reach out to the person and stop them.  We want you to stop them for their own safety, for their loved ones and for the company.  In these tough economic times, we just can't afford injuries.  In these tough economic times, employees can't afford injuries.  When an employee sustains a work related injury, no good ever comes from it.  The injured worker loses out on wage earnings.  Under the Illinois Workers Compensation Act, an injured worker receives 2/3rds of their normal wages while he/she is deemed off work by a doctor.  That means that an injured worker is receiving 1/3rd less pay which is a large chunk of money.  Not only are you losing some wage earnings, you are also typically in pain from the injury.  God forbid if your injury is of a serious nature and you are off work for an extended period of time as this can really affect the injured worker and their family.

For the sake or yourself, your loved ones and for International Decorators, lets work together as a team and not allow for any more injuries.  We need to be in the mind set that injuries are just not acceptable.  When an injury occurs, there is typically a very good or very bad reason as to why the injury occurred.  We can't just accept that an injury occurred because "I had the wrong equipment," or "my equipment was defective," or "I cut my hand on a steel stud because I wasn't wearing gloves," etc.  There is always a root cause as to why an injury occurred and we need to sometimes ask why 3 to 5 times to get to the root cause.

"I sustained an eye injury."  Why?  "Because the darn cheap concrete broke and a piece of concrete flew into my eye while I was using a Trakfast gun to fasten a pin."  Why weren't you wearing safety glasses?  "Because we didn't have a box of safety glasses in our gangbox." Why again?  "Because I didn't want to waste International Decorator's money by taking the time to stop working and locate a pair of safety glasses."  Why?  "Because I figured I only had to fasten a few pins and it would only take me 5 minutes and it would have taken me 5 to 10 minutes to locate a pair of safety glasses."  Why again?  "Because I was not planning ahead that I would be using a Trakfast gun and making sure I had the necessary personal protective equipment ahead of time."  Why again?  "I just figured that it was only one time and I was shooting a few pins and I just didn't think that safety glasses were that important."

The bottom line was that the root cause of this injury was not the cheap concrete.  The root cause of the injury was simply that the injured worker didn't follow a company policy requiring safety glasses when using a Trakfast fastener tool.

The bottom line also is that we cannot take short cuts on safety as this is typically when things go bad!  Plan ahead when it comes to protecting yourself and don't commit an unsafe act just because you don't have a pair of safety glasses with you exactly when you need them. If you have Trakfast fastener tools at your job site, this means that eye protection will be needed. Maybe safety glasses had been stocked at the job site and we ran out?  Someone then needs to request more.  Maybe we never did stock the job site with safety glasses?  Again, someone at the job site needs to request some?  We cannot make excuses for injuries occurring.  We need to find out the root cause and then prevent this same type of injury from reoccurring.

By the way, the above accident is hypothetical and did not occur at I.D.I.  We all know better to plan ahead and wear safety glasses while using a fastener tool!

Have a Safe Day!