In today's episode, Dr. Ayers discusses the correlation between housekeeping and safety. A clean workplace is a happy workplace.
The Occupational Safety Leadership Podcast
Episode 166 - Housekeeping and Safety
Welcome to the Occupational Safety Leadership Podcast, episode number 166, and today's episode we'll talk about a little correlation between housekeeping and safety. This is one of my least favorite topics. I know it has to be addressed, of course, but housekeeping is really hard. I have found that there's a lot of different standards out there, much like when me and my wife talk, and she says, "I want you to clean the garage." We have different standards of that, you know, and it doesn't mean that either party is wrong, but the big thing, of course, is that you sit down, you look at those, you look at that performance, and you say, "This is what the standard is," we hold the standard, so this part is really important that people communicate because it's just hard, so let's just dive right in on this one then, so we know there has been a correlation between housekeeping and safety, and many times these are things that we see and we have a really hard time putting like a cost benefit on it, I mean, it's almost like the morale and the workforce. You think that when the morale is high, things are really good and all that, but boy, is that really hard to put your finger on it and say, "And this is how much better it made it to at the same time then," so we know that when we do good housekeeping, there's going to be a reduction of hazards, you know, you're not going to have clutter in the way, and of course that helps to prevent slips, trips, and falls, walkways and floors are going to be clean, we don't have those obstructions, all that good stuff then, it makes it real easy to give a point A to point B, everything has a place for it, and a place for everything. The things that we can correlate fire prevention, so we know when we have cluttered workplaces, we also, most of the time, have fire hazards, especially when you have flammables, if you're going to be storing boxes, and whether the boxes are pretty simple, then done, kind of ready to go for shipping, or you use them, or you think in the future that you're going to use them, break them down, flatten them down, all that good stuff, I go to a lot of places, and it seems like folks, when they find a box, they become a hoarder, all of a sudden, like, somehow in the future, in five years, that's the perfect box for them to be packing something up in, so we also know that ergonomics are going to improve, because we're going to have easy access to things, we're not reaching, stretching, we can set up the workbench just right, you know, everything is within reach, accessibility and visibility, there's a lot of cases now with big box stores, storing things by fire exits, blocking the signs for fire, impeding the egress, you're going to have easier access to fire extinguishers, so when you think about when you have a sign, and somebody says, "Hey, go this way, run this way," it makes it really easy to find things, also, like fire extinguishers, first day kits, all that stuff, maintenance of equipment, so I've been to a lot of places where they talk about how great the maintenance is, but you can go and look at these machineries, and you can tell by how things are piled up on the left and the right that they have not done maintenance on these in a long time, and when you really peel back that onion, a lot of times people say things like, "Well, I want to do it right, I want to do this, but we don't have a place to store this," or it takes me half an hour to move everything to do something for five minutes, and then I put it back again, you know, so the next one, improved employee morale and productivity, when people have that good pride, of course, you know, they do a whole lot better of a job, but this is one that I really struggle with because for me, I really like to have that data, so this is one that you know that you made a difference, it feels like you made a difference, but you're really struggling with that whole, like, morale aspect of the housekeeping. Compliance with regulations, so this is one that of course that we should all be doing at a absolute minimum, so we shouldn't worry about getting fancy until we can at least comply with the basics because the OSHA regs are good, but they will only protect you so far, many of them were written back in the 1970s, and of course, the workplace has totally changed since then, so we're not too much of a factory-based economy anymore, lots of cube farms, data, data centers out there, big box stores, things, things that really weren't envisioned when they first came up with this whole thing, and then finally the last one, I just only apply as a course for certain industries, but when we talk about prevention of contamination, you know, and especially when we think about things like processing of food, the pharmaceuticals, health care industry, just things that you know that the contamination is really helping to keep the area good, clean, sterile, really helps to keep the safety of the product, and also for the consumer health, and that is it for today's episode 166, housekeeping and safety. Now we talked about the benefits, of course, of housekeeping and all this, and in future episodes, we'll try to get more into the human topic, the human subject of this, because it's really difficult to have a standard, and of course everybody is busy, and there's a lot of folks who say, "Well, I can break the standard for an hour or two, because you know we're busy, then I'll take that skid outside, I'll do this, I'll do that," and sometimes we then end up with a deviation of standards, because folks just, you know, they have a good heart, they're going to get to it, they just never got to it, and then at some point the trash and all that just kind of ends up being like rabbits. You get two, you get four, you get eight, and then at some point you literally have to have a clean and beautiful day, so, okay, episode 166 is complete, I want to thank everyone for joining me today, my name is Dr. David Ayers, thank you, and have a safe day.
In today’s episode, Dr. Ayers discusses the correlation between housekeeping and safety. A clean workplace is a happy workplace.