FACTS

1. Taking Shortcuts: Every day we make decisions we hope will make the job faster and more efficient. Short cuts that reduce your safety on the job are not shortcuts but an increased chance for injury.
2. Being Over-Confident: Overconfidence is too much of a good thing. “It’ll never happen to me” is an attitude that can lead to improper procedures, tools, or methods in your work.
3. Starting a Task with Incomplete Instructions: To do the job safely and right the first time you need complete information. Don’t be shy about asking for explanations about work procedures and safety precautions.
4. Poor Housekeeping: When clients, managers or safety professionals walk through your work site, housekeeping is an accurate indicator of everyone’s attitude about quality, production and safety.
5. Ignoring Safety Procedures: Purposely failing to observe safety procedures can endanger you and your co- workers.
6. Mental Distractions from Work: Dropping your ‘mental’ guard can pull your focus away from safe work procedures. You can also be distracted when you’re busy working and a friend comes by to talk while you are trying to work.
7. Failure to Pre-Plan the Work: JHA’s are an effective way to figure out the smartest ways to work safely and effectively. Plan Your Work and then Work Your Plan.

STATS

• Overexertion leads the list of top 10 injury causes. Representing almost a quarter of all workplace injuries, overexertion (lifting, pushing, pulling, holding, carrying, or throwing objects) costs businesses just under $14 billion a year. “Falls on the same level” aren’t far behind at a cost of $11.2 billion, representing 19.2% of all workplace injuries.
• Despite great strides in improving OSH during the past century, an estimated 317 million nonfatal occupational injuries and 321,000 occupational fatalities occur globally each year, that is, 151 workers sustain a work-related accident every 15 seconds.
• Estimates from the International Social Security Association (ISSA) suggest that costs associated with nonfatal workplace accidents alone equal approximately 4 % of world gross domestic product (GDP) each year.
• Although the true burden of occupational injury in HICs remains uncertain, an estimated 8.5 million occurred in the United States during). Occupational injuries and fatalities take an even greater toll in LMICs, where a large portion of the population works in the informal sector or in high-hazard sectors, including agriculture, construction, fishing, and mining, with associated costs as high as 10 % of GDP.