Know the Signs of Employee Burnout

As your in-service safety provider, we wanted to send out this monthly safety message to raise awareness and enhance employee quality of life in your company. This monthly message deals with “The Importance of Safety Database Grading Management.”

Employees Burned Out? Know The Warning Signs

Workers are more stressed than ever. There are some telltale signs of stress that Supervisors want to keep an eye out for. Employees under excess stress:

• Avoid work. Output drops and they do not respond like normal during agreed-on, regular hours.
• Perform less. They miss goals and do not produce the same quality of work.
• Become apathetic. They are not interested in their work, team, company, etc.
• Do not take time off. Some employees go to the extreme other side of avoiding work and instead over-work.
• Are irritable. They get irritated by colleagues, family members or any interruption.
• Indicate hopelessness, worry or sadness. They notably are not as pleasant or cheerful as they once were.

If you recognize these symptoms, it is time to step in, discuss workload, how they are feeling, and if there is anything you or the company can do to help.

Federal OSHA’s top 10 most cited violations accounted for 24,239 violations for fiscal year 2020. The top 10 was released by the National Safety Council during a Feb. 26 webinar, along with the number of violations, most affected industries and what inspectors are seeing other companies getting wrong:

1. Fall protection – General requirements (1926.501), 5,424 violations!

This standard having the most violations was not a surprise, according to OSHA Deputy Director for its Enforcement Directorate, Patrick Kapust. Kapust said the problems OSHA is finding under this standard involve lack of fall protection during residential construction activities, no fall protection when working around unprotected sides and edges, inappropriate fall protection on both low-slope and steep roofs. These violations are being found among roofing, framing, masonry, commercial and institutional, and new single-family housing contractors.

2. Hazard communication (1910.1200), 3,199 violations

Inspectors are finding problems with written hazard communication programs and implementation of those programs. “Sometimes we’ll find an employer will have a written program, but they just haven’t implemented it yet,” Kapust said. “It must be implemented in the workplace. It shouldn’t just be maintained in a notebook in the office.” Other violations involve employee information and training, maintaining safety data sheets and making sure they are readily available, labels and other warnings and requirements to develop safety data sheets and maintain copies of them. These violations are being found in manufacturing; general industry; construction, masonry, and roofing contractors; automotive body, paint and interior repair and maintenance; general automotive repair; and machine shops.

3. Respiratory protection (1910.134), 2,649 violations

OSHA is seeing companies fail to perform medical evaluations for respirator use, create a written respiratory protection program, perform fit testing and a lack of meeting the general requirements of the standard. The agency is finding these violations in auto body, paint, and interior repair shops; cut stone and stone product manufacturing; metal coating and engraving services; masonry contractors; and nursing care facilities

4. Scaffolding (1926.451), 2,538 violations

Employees working without fall protection, general access, plank and deck deficiencies, support to keep from tipping over and guardrail requirements were the most common violations under this standard. OSHA found these among roofing, framing and commercial and institutional building contractors.

5. Ladders (1926.1053) 2,129 violations

Inspectors are finding violations involving use of portable ladders for purposes they were not designed for, tops of step ladders used as a step, failure to remove defective ladders from service and employees carrying objects that could make them lose their balance and fall. These violations were found among roofing, framing, siding, masonry, and new single-family housing contractors.

6. Lockout/tagout (1910.147), 2,065 violations

Violations OSHA is finding under this standard include energy control procedures for each type of equipment, general training and communication, periodic inspection of the lockout/tagout procedures to make sure they are adequate and properly implemented and general program requirements. The agency is finding these violations at plastic product manufacturing facilities, sawmills, machine shops, wood container and pallet manufacturing plants and fabricated metal manufacturing facilities.

7. Powered industrial trucks (1910.178), 1,932 violations

One type of violation Kapust said OSHA finds a lot involves training for safe operation of powered industrial trucks, specifically, ensuring the operator has been trained properly on the type of truck they will be using. OSHA is also finding violations for refresher training and evaluation regarding that refresher training. This kind of training is required after an employee is observed operating a truck unsafely as well as every three years. Other violations involve operator certification of training, operating an industrial truck in need of repair or service and failure to ensure trained personnel are making repairs to industrial trucks. These violations are being found in general warehousing and storage, cut stone product manufacturing and recyclable material and merchant wholesalers.

8. Fall protection – Training requirements (1926.503), 1,621 violations

Inspectors found companies that violated this standard failed to maintain certificates of training, failed to provide training by a competent person, did not re-train after inadequacies were found and failed to re-train in general. No information regarding industries these violations were found in was provided.

9. Personal protective equipment – Eye and face protection (1926.102), 1,369 violations

OSHA is finding violations on use of appropriate eye and face protection, use of appropriate eye protection providing side protection, general requirements including use of appropriate prescription lenses and criteria for protective eye and face protection. Violations of this nature were found with construction, masonry, frame, and siding contractors.

10. Machine guarding (1910.212), 1,313 violations

The types of violations OSHA are finding under this standard include points of operation guarding, anchoring of fixed machinery and general requirements. These occur in a variety of industries such as machine shops, plastic products manufacturing, and sheet metal manufacturing.

*Note: All the data on OSHA’s Top 10 is preliminary and could change as more data is collected.

COMPREHENSIVE SAFETY MANAGEMENT SERVICES

In addition to our Free Monthly Toolbox Talk Newsletter, we offer a wide range of services for Safety Management System Implementation. Our safety management services provide companies with an internal structure to stay OSHA compliant and reduce the risk of employees who might be exposed to occupational health and safety risks on the job. Our services include, Texas Based First Aid Kit Sales & Refill Service, Texas Based HSE Consulting, Texas Based AED Sales and Rentals, Texas Based Fire Extinguisher Sales and Inspection, and Texas Safety Database Management.