Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees: I have been away from the office for the past 2 weeks so I have not been able to input any safety posts on this blog. Now that I am back, I am working on safety matters that need attention. I plan on posting a safety article by the end of the week.
In the meantime, I hope that everyone had a happy and safe new year with your loved ones.
Thank you, Safety Pete
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011
When Should I Wear Gloves?
Good morning to all I.D.I. employees: I hope everyone had a great weekend. If your weekend wasn't so great, at least keep in mind that the Packers lost and they can no longer lay claim to having a perfect season. Had they run the table, gone undefeated and won the Super Bowl, we Bears fans would have NEVER heard the end of it.
Now for a little glove discussion. When should I wear gloves and does the type of glove matter? There are several tasks that employees perform that require gloves. Lets start with hand & finger laceration protection. I.D.I. has a policy in place that requires carpenter/framers and all employees that are handling or working around sharp objects to wear gloves. This policy is mainly in place to reduce the laceration risk of employees working with metal track & studs. This applies mainly to our framers and delivery drivers. I.D.I. put this policy in place in February 2010 and we have since had a dramatic reduction in hand and finger lacerations. As a matter of fact, since February 2010, we have had only 1 framer sustain a laceration on his hand and he was not wearing gloves when the incident occured. I.D.I. supplies a cotton Jersey type glove to our employees to use for this purpose. Employees installing insulation are also required to wear gloves. The main reason for this policy is because the M.S.D.S. (Material Safety Data Sheet) calls for gloves to be worn when handling insulation. For the common fiberglass insulation batts, the cotton gloves work very well. If you are installing Thermafiber type insulation, we require the nitrile coated gloves (rubber dipped type) to be worn as they are impermeable to the small granules and fibers that come with this type of insulation. Prior to requiring the nitrile coated gloves to be worn for Thermafiber insulation handling, we had 2 employees sustain infections from the granules getting embedded in their hand and/or fingers. Since we put the nitrile coated glove policy in place, we have had no further infection problems develop from the Thermafiber insulation. Another task that requires gloves are when an employee is working with a corrosive material such as a corrosive paint that can burn their skin. We supply and require a PVC coated type glove for this application. The PVC coated gloves that we supply are usually black in color and are a rubberized type of glove that runs about half way up the forearm.
Please keep in mind that there are other times that gloves are required. The above mentioned scenarios are when I.D.I. does require gloves. It is diffucult for an employer to name every situation where a glove would be required. It is important that employees read the M.S.D.S. sheets for the products being used as they will tell you if a glove is required and the type of glove required. Also, think about the task you are performing and if there is a chance you can injure your hand or fingers, think about the type of glove that would protect you and ask for a pair.
If you have any questions about gloves or our gloves policies, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham. You can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com and I believe that everyone has his phone number.
Now for a little glove discussion. When should I wear gloves and does the type of glove matter? There are several tasks that employees perform that require gloves. Lets start with hand & finger laceration protection. I.D.I. has a policy in place that requires carpenter/framers and all employees that are handling or working around sharp objects to wear gloves. This policy is mainly in place to reduce the laceration risk of employees working with metal track & studs. This applies mainly to our framers and delivery drivers. I.D.I. put this policy in place in February 2010 and we have since had a dramatic reduction in hand and finger lacerations. As a matter of fact, since February 2010, we have had only 1 framer sustain a laceration on his hand and he was not wearing gloves when the incident occured. I.D.I. supplies a cotton Jersey type glove to our employees to use for this purpose. Employees installing insulation are also required to wear gloves. The main reason for this policy is because the M.S.D.S. (Material Safety Data Sheet) calls for gloves to be worn when handling insulation. For the common fiberglass insulation batts, the cotton gloves work very well. If you are installing Thermafiber type insulation, we require the nitrile coated gloves (rubber dipped type) to be worn as they are impermeable to the small granules and fibers that come with this type of insulation. Prior to requiring the nitrile coated gloves to be worn for Thermafiber insulation handling, we had 2 employees sustain infections from the granules getting embedded in their hand and/or fingers. Since we put the nitrile coated glove policy in place, we have had no further infection problems develop from the Thermafiber insulation. Another task that requires gloves are when an employee is working with a corrosive material such as a corrosive paint that can burn their skin. We supply and require a PVC coated type glove for this application. The PVC coated gloves that we supply are usually black in color and are a rubberized type of glove that runs about half way up the forearm.
Please keep in mind that there are other times that gloves are required. The above mentioned scenarios are when I.D.I. does require gloves. It is diffucult for an employer to name every situation where a glove would be required. It is important that employees read the M.S.D.S. sheets for the products being used as they will tell you if a glove is required and the type of glove required. Also, think about the task you are performing and if there is a chance you can injure your hand or fingers, think about the type of glove that would protect you and ask for a pair.
If you have any questions about gloves or our gloves policies, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham. You can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com and I believe that everyone has his phone number.
Thank you and have a Safe Day!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Next Quarterly Safety Meeting - Saturday, 2/11/12
Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employee: In case you are looking ahead at your calendars, our next quarterly safety meeting will be held on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 7:00am. The meeting will be held at our usual meeting location at our Barrington office at 28059 W. Commercial Ave. We have not selected the safety topic for the meeting as of yet. We want to wait until the meeting date gets closer in case a timely topic comes up that we need to train on. In the meantime, you can mark your calendars with the date. We will provide everyone with more information about the meeting in a mailer as we get closer to the date.
Have a Safe Weekend!
Friday, December 2, 2011
2 More Employees Caught Working Safely!
Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees: Two more employees were caught working safely on 11/28/11. Framer's Lou Spalla and Daniel Dominick were caught in the act working on a roof deck on a baker scaffold with the wheels locked, safety rails in place on their fall exposure side, tied off with fall protection to the overhead steel beam and using a face shield & safety glasses while cutting steel track with a partner saw. They were also wearing their hard hats, gloves, work boots, etc.
Great job guys - keep it up! Have a safety day everyone!
Friday, November 25, 2011
4th Quarter & Year End Quarterly Safety Meeting Attendance - Great Job Everyone!
Good morning to all I.D.I. employees: We had our 4th & final quarterly safety meeting of 2011 on 11/5/11 and our final makeup safety meeting on 11/22/11. Our final attendance results have been tallied and here they are: For the 4th quarterly safety meeting we had a total field show up rate of 92% and a Safety Coordinator show up rate of 96%. For the whole year, the total field show up rate was 86% and the Safety Coordinator show up rate was 91%. We exceeded our attendance goals which are 75% for total field and 80% for Safety Coordinators. We want to extend a big thank you to all of the employees who took time away from your busy schedules to attend our quarterly safety meetings. This reflects your true colors and shows what you are all about. Your attendance is vital to I.D.I. in helping us to maintain our strong safety culture and making us the industry leader in safety in the construction field. Hopefully we reap the benefits of the strong performance of exceeding our safety meeting attendance goals by having fewer injuries which means less pain for our employees and overall should help us to be more competitive in our bidding of projects. You may recall at the last quarterly meeting we announced that we also exceeded our injury cost per man hours worked goal which is to be at $0.50 or better. We ended the year at $0.46 which was the first time we have exceeded this goal since we began tracking it 5 years ago.
Now the challenge ahead is to keep the momentum rolling into 2012. We cannot let our guard down when it comes to safety. Safety is not something you purchase once and you own it. Safety is on ongoing process. Safety is something you do all the time. The goal of safety is to make it become engrained and 2nd nature to the point where you don't even really have to think about it, you just do the right thing and make the correct safe choices because that is just how you do it.
Great job everyone on having one of our safest years on records. We can't do it without you!
Now the challenge ahead is to keep the momentum rolling into 2012. We cannot let our guard down when it comes to safety. Safety is not something you purchase once and you own it. Safety is on ongoing process. Safety is something you do all the time. The goal of safety is to make it become engrained and 2nd nature to the point where you don't even really have to think about it, you just do the right thing and make the correct safe choices because that is just how you do it.
Great job everyone on having one of our safest years on records. We can't do it without you!
Have a Safe Day!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Makeup Safety Meeting - Tuesday, 11/22/11 at 4:00pm
Good morning to all I.D.I. employees: We have scheduled our quarterly safety makeup meeting for Tuesday, 11/22/11 at 4:00pm. The meeting will be held at our Barrington office in the warehouse area. If you plan on attending, please ensure that you contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham, no later than Monday, 11/21/11 so we can obtain a headcount for chair rental, etc. This meeting is intended for those that had to work on Saturday, 11/5/11, during our regularly scheduled quarterly safety meeting and for those that could not attend due to special circumstances. The 11/22/11 safety meeting topic is regarding our Safety Coordinator Program, our safety rules, policies and more. If you have any questions regarding this meeting, please contact Peter Graham. You can reach Peter via e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com, call our office at (847) 526-7477 or you can reach him on his mobile phone.
Have a Safe Day and hope to see you at the safety meeting!
Monday, November 14, 2011
A Couple of Guys Caught Working Safely!
Good morning to all I.D.I. employees: Last Tuesday, I caught a couple of I.D.I.'s finest working in a safe manner. Carpenters Dave Snedecor & Earl Bingman were working on the exterior doing some framing. Both were wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment for the tasks being performed and Earl was appropriately wearing a safety harness while tied off to the boom lift's anchorage point. Mario was observed working in the interior of a structure brushing and rolling a block wall while in a boom lift. Mario also was wearing the approprite PPE for the task being performed and he was also using fall protection and tied off to the boom lift's fall protection anchorage point. Great job gentlemen on helping to make our safety culture what it is!
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