FACTS

Lack of Training Increases the Risk of Workplace Accidents

1. Employees are unqualified for their positions. If the employee hasn’t shown that he or she can work safely, the risk of a workplace accident increases.
2. Employees are not provided adequate safety procedures or protocols to follow. Informing a work force on the proper ways to limit these risks and to respond in an emergency will greatly reduce the chances that workers will put themselves and others at risk.
3. New employees are not properly supervised. It is important for supervisors to remain with the employee to stop any action that risks the worker’s wellbeing.
4. Employees are not provided detailed information concerning the risks that are specific to their occupations. An example of this would be apprentices on construction sites not being provided information on how to avoid electrocution, how to prevent falls from scaffolding or ladders and what forms of personal protective gear is needed on the worksite.
5. Employers do not keep accurate records of the training and qualifications their employees have received. It is important before attempting to find a solution to any problem to be able to evaluate where you stand.
6. Failure of employers to determine whether an employee is suited to his or her tasks.
7. Employees are not provided safe alternatives to practices that commonly result in injury.

STATS

• The number of building occupants that know what to do following a fire outbreak is below 50%.
• Falls are the number one cause of death, accounting for 34 % of the people killed in Ohio, but other major causes are being struck by vehicles or materials and getting caught in equipment caused by lack of safety training.
• Many fatal accidents could be prevented with the right equipment, but still there have been six deaths on the job so far this year in the region overseen just by Cincinnati area OSHA Director Bill Wilkerson. He estimates 17 total workers have died across Ohio.
• About 75% of struck-by fatalities involve heavy equipment, such as trucks or cranes, according to OSHA. Workers in agriculture, construction and manufacturing are most at risk, but firefighters, police, transportation employees, office workers and others also can count contact with objects in the top three causes of death and injury.
• According to Injury Facts, there have been about 700 workplace deaths due to these types of incidents every year for the past decade, and hundreds of thousands of injuries annually that involve days away from work and must of them just happened by lack of safety training.