Dashpivot Article – Engineering Safety Moments
Engineering Safety Moments
Safety moments are essential safety discussions in engineering industries, but why? Learn more about why safety moments matter, how to easily format one, and how you can streamline safety documentation to catch up with this 2-minute safety discussion.
Table of Contents
Article Summary
- A safety moment serves as a smart safety touchpoint, especially useful in demanding high-risk, even engineering, industries.
- Many standards like ISO 45001, OSHA's General Duty Clause, ISO 31000, and more, across all high-risk and engineering industries that have the goals to improve communication between team members, promote workplace safety, encourage leadership participation, and conduct hazard identification heavily rely on safety discussions like safety moments due to its purpose.
- Employers should never gamble on the lives of workers and should ensure that all angles, measures, and safety procedures are well-met through safety moments.
Why do Safety Moments matter in engineering?
Safety moments matter in engineering because they meet the obligations in spreading safety awareness, quick reminders or trainings to workers, and managing communication between teams in engineering industries. With these principles, they fully align with the frameworks of some standards across industries.
Many standards highlight safety and health awareness, thorough communication between and across teams, proactive hazard identification and effective control measures, and leadership involvement in high-risk environments, which are exactly what a safety moment quickly delivers. Standards such as ISO 45001 or OSHA’s General Duty Clause don’t explicitly say they mandate safety moments, but they do highlight the same things a safety moment delivers.
Both ISO 45001 and OSHA’s General Duty Clause are not “engineering-specific” but they are applied based on risk, so they are directly applicable to all including high-risk engineering industries like oil and gas (see safety moment topics for oil and gas companies and workers), and construction and civil engineering (Safety Moments Construction).
Some other notable standards that have similar principles as a safety moment are ISO 31000 (Risk Management), ANSI/ASSP Z10 (OH&S Management Systems), ISO 12100 (Safety of Machinery - Risk Assessment), and many more.
Although safety moments are not exactly mandated in standards, they heavily support compliance across those standards.
All industries, including high-risk engineering industries, have all of these strict regulations and standards to follow, so having these brief but direct and focused discussions help reinforce the safety regulations and promote safety awareness in the workplace or in a specific task/job to meet compliance. They serve as daily reminders that safety should be the top priority anytime, anywhere in the workplace.
Formatting your quick, 2-minute engineering safety moment
Safety moments should be quick, between 2–5 minutes of discussing safety topics at hand. The goal is to focus on a single point, making it easily digestible for workers before they start the task/work, and deliver key messages just in a few minutes – meaning you also need to document safety meetings and attendances quickly.
The example below uses a format that exactly keeps up with the urgency, in fact, makes it even quicker. See how the format in the example below quickens data entry, keep messages direct and easily understandable, and effectively reminds everyone of key safety notes.
Free Safety Moment Template
Use this Safety Moment for free
Why is it crucial to conduct safety moments in high-risk engineering industries?
It is extremely crucial to conduct safety moments especially if you’re in any high-risk industry, include engineering ones.
Workers everyday face risk and hazards, from using heavy machinery to being possibly trapped in confined spaces – the margin of error is highly too slim, and it’s not something where you can leave safety up to chance. Employers need to be fully prepared. They need to encourage a workplace of safety, conduct regular safety briefings, meetings, and training to keep everyone safe.
See how a safety moment is important for conducting work in confined spaces here in this article, Safety Moment Confined Space.
When teams have quick safety moments before starting a high-risk job, they’re able to relay the possible risks associated to the job, based on patterns and history. They can provide updates and establish ground rules or critical procedure before starting. Safety moments can simply include “No permit, no entry” and that already makes all the difference.
Here are some quality content safety moments that you can read about, that discuss specific risks in the workplace: Safety Moment Dehydration, Safety Moment Working at Height, and Safety Moment Winter Driving.
When lives are on the line in high-risk work, never gamble when it comes to safety. Spend that extra 2–5 minutes for brief check-ins to run operations smoothly, and keep everyone safe and healthy.
Common safety moments in engineering workplaces
Across most, including engineering, industries, there are pretty common hazards that occur or even generic focused conversations that need immediate attention. They need safety moments so that the key safety topics will serve as touchpoints before dealing with hazardous materials, heavy equipment, or just a really highly dangerous job.
Slips, trips, falls
These hazards are one of the most common ones across nearly all industries, not just in engineering. They can literally happen in anything. You could be in your office, in a construction site, working at heights, on wet and/or uneven surfaces, areas with poor lighting, etc. They’re pretty easy to be overlooked because they don’t sound as serious as dealing with machines or wearing PPEs, but these hazards are consistently one of the leading causes of workplace injuries globally. Develop safety moments targeted to reminding workers of the possible slips, trips, and falls in the workplace, especially with the obvious hazards mentioned. Here’s an article on how to prevent slips, trips, and falls in the workplace that might help you develop a clear safety moment.
Lockout/Tagout (LOTO)
LOTO is a safety procedure that makes sure machines are shut off while maintenance or repair work is being done. Strong safety moments that talk about LOTO could be about when LOTO is needed, what to do when machine maintenance work is ongoing, reminding involved and nearby personnel the steps, etc. Remind workers through a safety moment by reading and incorporating the contents of this article Lock out tag out procedure 6 steps.
PPE
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are a must in any high-risk industry. A safety moment that specifically talks about PPE reminds workers the specific PPEs needed for the task/job/location, how to properly wear them, or how to report damaged ones, or even why PPE matters. Before developing safety moments, it’s key that you study the history and patterns of accidents in that specific area or conduct a PPE Hazard Assessment. Read more on this article What is a PPE Hazard Assessment to guide you on your PPE safety moment.
Smarter safety moments with smarter tools
Safety moments need to be quick but direct and easily understandable, however, engineering works and any type of work across all high-risk industries are getting more and more complex. Similarly, safety practices, the methods of documentation, and sustaining these safety practices need to catch up to fast-paced high-risk industries. Instead of relying on with the manual methods and manual reminders – turn your safety moments into their smarter versions using smarter tools.
Safety moments and other informal discussions won’t be overlooked. By using this Safety Moments App, you’re keeping structures consistent, you’re developing your own standard, you can track the attendance and participation, and just generally making safety conversations a whole lot easier.
Streamlining and enhancing health and safety discussions
Safety discussions shouldn’t be tedious and bothersome. Keeping track of safety discussions, communicating to workers how to stay safe, logging and entering data relevant to worker safety and health, and more should be streamlined. Use this smarter safety management system to enhance your health and safety discussions.
To make safety management easier to handle, you need quality and practical tools at hand. Consistently keep workplaces safe and accident-free by leveraging what technology can offer – let your teams and workers have access to ready-to-use topics by going through this directory of safety forms.
Summary of engineering Safety Moments
Safety moments are quick and brief but powerful tools that strengthen the safety practices of hazards identified in high-risk, including engineering, industries.
They are key to making sure that the key safety topics are quickly reminded to workers before they start on a task/job. Companies and employers should spend these 2-5 minutes to check in with everyone, verify safety procedures, and encourage proactive participation in workplace safety.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Safety Moments required for all, including engineering, industries?
A safety moment is the best tool that supports compliance across any standard or regulations that mandates safety awareness, hazard identification, leadership participation, etc. To fully comply with the safety standards you're following, conducting safety moments is the appropriate measure.
How are modern tools improving how people conduct safety moments and discussions?
Modern tools like Dashpivot are transforming how safety moments are being documented. Since they're quick and brief, documentation should also catch up. Instead of depending on physical papers and participation sheets, team leaders can easily create their safety moment documents and log attendance digitally. This saves time, and makes communication between team members easier and faster.
Does Sitemate have templates specifically for safety moments?
Yes - Sitemate has a directory of ready-to-use and easily editable safety moment templates and even other safety forms that you can incorporate into your workflows. Any company within high-risk, including engineering, industries greatly benefit from it and are even using these templates right now to streamline their safety moment discussions and other safety discussions.
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