Today’s Safety Daily Advisor Tip:

• An office worker carrying a stack of files falls down the stairs and severely injures her back.
• Another office worker gets a painful bang on his shin when he bumps into on a lower desk drawer that’s been left open.
• An office worker, opening a box of supplies with a box cutter, cuts her hand and has to be taken to the emergency room for stitches.
• A disgruntled former employee returns to the office and shoots his supervisor and three co-workers.
• The person designated to shut off the coffee maker forgets, and later that night a fire breaks out, spreading rapidly through the office.
• An office worker entering the building on a wet day slips and falls on the wet tiles in the entryway.
• The mailroom receives a suspicious package, which turns out to contain an explosive device.

These are just a few possible scenarios that demonstrate the risks office workers may face on the job.

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OSHA Requirements

Office safety is covered by OSHA’s General Duty Clause requirement that you protect workers against known hazards. The following standards also apply to a variety of office environments:

• Housekeeping—29 CFR 1910.22
• Exit routes, Emergency Action Plans, and Fire Prevention Plans—29 CFR 1910.33 to 1910.39
• Fire Protection—29 CFR Subpart L
• Electrical Safety—29 CFR Subpart S
• Hazard communication for chemical hazards—29 CFR 1910.1200
• Sanitation—29 CFR 1910.141

Office Safety Plan

Your office safety plan should include information about the following basic elements as applicable to your workplace:

• Hazard assessment
• Safety orientation and training
• Housekeeping (e.g., surfaces, floors, entryways and exits, stairs, file cabinets, storage)
• Electrical cords
• Lighting
• Ergonomics and lifting safely
• Indoor air quality and ventilation
• Electrical appliances
• Emergency action and fire prevention
• Medical and first aid
• Chemical hazard communication and control
• Disability accommodations
• Workplace violence
• Accident investigation
• Sanitation
• Security

Your plan should be reviewed at least annually and updated whenever changes in procedures or the office environment could create new hazards or affect existing ones.

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Office Safety Responsibilities

Responsibility for office safety is shared by safety personnel, office managers and supervisors, and office workers. Everybody’s got an important role to play.

It’s your job to:

• Implement an office safety plan
• Enforce all safety policies and procedures
• Conduct worker training regarding common office hazards
• Investigate all accidents and near misses and keep appropriate records
• Make regular office inspections to look for hazards
• Oversee correction of reported office hazards promptly

Office managers and supervisors must:

• Monitor employee safety performance
• Keep alert for potential hazards in office areas (as well as in areas office workers must pass through to get to the office) Ensure that employees follow safety procedures and policies
• Work with maintenance to make sure that cleaning and maintenance tasks are performed routinely and properly
• Report any hazards or accidents to you immediately

Office workers must:

• Be informed about potential office hazards
• Follow the procedures of the office safety plan and the instructions of their supervisor
• Keep work areas uncluttered, orderly, sanitary, and free of other hazards
• Report unsafe conditions or acts that may cause injury to either themselves or other employees
• Report accidents and injuries to their supervisor

Tomorrow we’ll review good housekeeping requirements for the office.

• Recognize warning signs of violence
• Report such behaviors
• Defuse violent situations

Supervisors and managers should also be trained about these issues and additionally learn how to:

• Follow up before a potential problem escalates
• Communicate effectively with HR
• Use conflict resolution techniques
• Counsel employees and administer appropriate discipline in violence-related cases

Training for all employees at all levels should also address the details of the organization’s violence prevention policy, says Wayne Maxey, a senior consultant with Baron Center Inc., a San Diego—based consulting and training firm known for its expertise in violence intervention and prevention, threat assessment, and posttrauma response.

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Problem Behaviors

Potentially problematic behaviors include anger, outbursts, physical assaults or intimidation, bullying, substance abuse, and mental health issues. Maxey says that employees should also report co-workers’ comments about getting even with supervisors or the company as well as comments about weapons, homicide, or suicide.

Similarly, if a co-worker is fixated on recent incidents of workplace violence reported in the news or makes disturbing comments about such incidents, this should be reported. It’s better to encourage employees to report and be wrong about it than not to report and face a full-blown violent incident like a shooting that kills several people.

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Training Requirements

Maxey says that employees should receive violence prevention training when hired and complete a refresher course at least every 2 years.

BLR can make that training easy for you with Safety Meeting Repros’ Violence in the Workplace training module. The module is presented in two parts. Part I focuses on prevention, understanding causes of workplace violence, and identifying security measures designed to prevent problems. Part II focuses on recognizing signs of potential violence and defusing violent situations.

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