Page 36 - Occupational Health & Safety, September 2018

ELECTRICAL SAFETY
Workplace Safety: Culture, Plans, and Actions
A comprehensive approach is critical for workplace safety, and its benefits will go beyond compliance: Operational excellence will follow. BY JAY SMITH
The main goal of a safety program is to pre- vent workplace deaths and injuries, as well as the serious consequences that these events can cause for workers, their families, and employers. Organizations with a strong safety culture that have established comprehensive safety programs, effectively act on them, and monitor their progress are the winners when it comes to workplace safety.
Culture
Workplace safety starts with a strong safety culture, the collection of value and beliefs that employers and employees share in relation to risks in the workplace. Effective leadership is critical because cultural change is complex and hard. Leaders need to embrace the safety agenda and lead the efforts across the overall organization.
Employee engagement is also critical for a safety culture to evolve. Even if leaders are acting as safety role models, a safety culture will not be sustainable without active participation by all members of an organization, and safety will not reach its full poten- tial. As James Reason said, “an ideal safety culture is the engine that drives the system towards the goal of sustaining the maximum resistance towards its op- erational hazards.” Effective safety leadership and em- ployee engagement are that engine’s fuel.
Plans and Actions
There are five critical areas that must be addressed for
a comprehensive and effective safety approach. They include plans and actions that help the safety engine run without glitches. In this article, we will look at them in the context of NFPA 70E, where the focus is on the safety of employees who are exposed to electri- cal hazards arising from the use of electricity. But the same approach can used in the context of other haz- ards, such as combustible dust and others.
1. Electrical Safety Program: Company-wide, all- encompassing written guidelines are the foundation of a safety program. NFPA 70E, Section 110.1 requires a written document that directs activity appropri- ate for the risk associated with electrical hazards. Its scope includes safety principles, policies, procedures, controls, awareness of hazards, risk assessments, job safety plans/job briefings, audits, incident investiga- tion, and training, among others. The key objective of the Electrical Safety Program is to provide overall safety guidance. For it to be effective, this program must be properly communicated to, and understood by, everyone in the organization.
Employee engagement starts to be built around plans, but a static plan alone is not enough. For safety to be effective, we also need action:
2. Hazard Assessment: Section 130.2 requires that electrical equipment operating at voltages greater than 50 volts be put into an electrically safe working con- dition (disconnected from energized parts, locked/ tagged, tested for absence of voltage, and grounded if necessary) before a worker performs work on the equipment. Organizations need to establish an effective Lockout/Tagout program to address this requirement.
When an electrically safe working condition can- not be established, electrically safe work practices must be used before any worker is exposed to hazards. Section 130.5 requires an arc flash assessment to be performed to determine the risks, the safe work prac- tices required, the arc flash boundary, the incident energy exposure level at the working distance, and additional protective measures required, including the use of PPE. When work is performed under these conditions, an energized electrical work permit is re- quired if the work is performed within the restricted approach boundary.
There can be confusion regarding the require- ments and best approach to accomplish an effective arc flash assessment. There are many standards and various methods that can be used to calculate and quantify arc flash hazards. It is important to realize that not all arc flash assessments are equal, and they
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