Page 38 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2018

IH/GAS DETECTION
Daily bump testing is an input that deserves respect.
detection that they have witnessed firsthand. But it doesn’t and shouldn’t have to be that way.
Step 1: Invest in external or internal training on the proper use and limitations of gas detectors and what to do in case of an alarm. Use this time to share stories from first-person accounts, company incidents, or industry accidents. If your workforce can’t make a personal connection with the content, then you are starting off this journey on the wrong path.
Step 2: Pay attention to your gas detection program. Are people
properly maintaining the equipment? How are they using the mon- itors? What are they being exposed to? These clues exist in the data logs (all you must do is look). If you aren’t paying attention, then why mandate that employees wear them?
Step 3: Feedback, act, and reward. Based on the data, talk with your employees about the monitors. What do they feel about them? Can the tasks be changed so that exposures don’t happen? Or can these be mitigated? What are their thoughts? Can you re- ward employees for taking the right actions and properly main- taining them?
By no means is this intended to be comprehensive list. The intention is to start a conversation with your workforce about why gas detectors are being worn and what they can and can- not expect from them. Your company invested in gas detectors to enhance worker safety, not to have them become electronic “Boy Who Cried Wolf ” devices. This relationship can be saved. There is a cure for the Dangerfield Effect: a healthy dose of education, mindfulness, and truth. By bringing respect to the outputs, the inputs make sense.
Listen, gas detectors won’t ever be “cool.” They will always be the equivalent to an electronic work chaperone. But please under- stand the ubiquitous truths surrounding the inputs and ALWAYS act on the output. A gas detector could save your life one day.
Kyle Krueger serves as a district manager for Industrial Scientific Corporation. He can be reached at kkrueger@indsci.com.
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