Workplace Health and Safety Virtual Series

Learn from and ask questions to a certified industrial hygienist, biologist and chemist and expert on occupational health and safety.

The pandemic caused an awakening in the world of work and in U.S. workplaces.  As workers juggle the stresses and anxieties of returning to work and grapple with the realizations and changes of the past two years, the Worker Institute is offering a free webinar series on these and other workplace health and safety issues.
 

NELLIE BROWN

Director of Workplace Health & Safety Programs

Nellie Brown is the Director of Workplace Health and Safety Programs for both the Outreach Division statewide and for the Buffalo Co-Lab of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.


BIO

View the listing of upcoming webinars

Key Takeaways

• What is SARS-CoV-2 and its mutations/variants?
• How could SARS-CoV-2 be acquired or spread at work?
• What’s different about the pandemic now?
• Regulations and recommendations on preventing COVID-19 in workplaces
• Reducing workplace risk using the hierarchy of controls

Key Takeaways:

• Safety committee meetings – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• Establishing ground rules
• Guidelines for developing a good meeting agenda
• Key roles in every meeting: facilitator, recorder, timekeeper
• Methods of group decision-making – how to accelerate consensus
• Evaluating a meeting

Key Takeaways

• What do we mean by an “aging workforce”?
• Normal aging processes
• Impact of aging in the work environment
• Strategies for the workplace to minimize risk and vulnerability

Key Takeaways

• What is stress?
• Stress is “remembered”
• Stress: acute v. chronic
• What the organization can do to reduce stress
• What we can do for ourselves to reduce the effects of stress

Key Takeaways

• How might occupational safety and health be viewed through the lens of gender?
• Some jobs have a higher percentage of men or women; may this influence perceptions?
• Are there physical or mental differences which matter?
• Do any hazards present different levels of risk due to gender?

Key Takeaways

• Hierarchy of controls
• Types of controls and variety
• Examples of hazard categories and applying the hierarchy

Key Takeaways:

• Effects of shift work and desynchronization; circadian rhythm, desynchronization as a potential long-term stressor
• Adverse health effects; work hours and occupational exposure limits
• Behavioral consequences: errors; accidents; abuse of food or drugs
• Social consequences: security issues; isolation; family discord
• Reducing the impact of shift work and long hours of work: what the employer could do; what the employee could do

Key Takeaways

• Analysis tool at the level of the individual job or task
• Ground rules that help to smooth the path to apply job hazards analysis in your workplace
• Breaking down a job into its steps and exploring and evaluating the hazards of each step
• Necessary considerations from the Americans with Disabilities Act
• Hazard categories and examples of who may be at greater risk and potential accommodations
• Criteria under the ADA for determining “significant risk of substantial harm”

Key Takeaways

• Why should we talk about cytomegalovirus, CMV? Congenital CMV infection is one of the most common viral causes of birth defects and developmental disabilities.
• What is cytomegalovirus?
• How could CMV be acquired or spread at work?
• How could workplace exposure to CMV be prevented? including OSHA advisories

Key Takeaways

• Characteristics of a crisis
• The business case for managing crises well
• Creating a crisis response team
• Conducting a crisis audit
• Anticipating areas of vulnerability or possible crises
• Diagnosing your organization’s crisis preparedness in each crisis group