fbpx

Plant Health Care Safety Tips

by | Aug 31, 2020 | Safety | 0 comments

Plant Health Care Safety Tips

It is always important to wear your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), however, working with chemicals in Plant Health Care (PHC), is another story. As a tree care owner, you must make sure your PHC team takes PPE’s seriously. Here are some helpful safety tips to pass onto your PHC team.

Change of Clothes – Keep at least one change of clothes in the vehicle. A change of clothes can make a difference in having to wear the original clothing/shoes that you may have spilled chemicals on during the course of the day home. Place your change of clothing in a sealed plastic bag, when it is time to go home put your chemical residue clothing in the bag and wear the clean clothing/shoes home. Remember to wash your hands after touching your chemical residue clothing. Also wash your chemical residue clothing by itself, do not mix wash your chemical residue clothing with your spouse or children’s clothing.

Gloves – It is imperative, that you wear chemical resistant gloves. When you take them off be sure to wash your hands (a disinfectant wipe can be used for this if in the field). If you don’t wash your hands, popping a candy in your mouth, smoking a cigarette, eating lunch, etc. becomes a game of Russian Roulette – what chemical am I going to taste today. Above all after washing your hands, do not touch your clothing again. Clean your gloves every night – you don’t want to put the gloves on with chemicals from the day before on them. Make sure your gloves go up to at least mid-forearm. If a chemical spills and reaches over the top of the gloves – change your shirt.

Long Sleeve Shirt and Pants – Simply put wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants will protect you from chemical burns on your skin. However, those clothes must be changed right away if you spill any chemical onto your clothes, as the chemical will soak into the fabric and then your skin.

Safety Goggles and Helmet – No one wants to lose their vision due to a chemical splash. So wearing googles are another must wear when working with chemicals. Ensure they fit tightly around your eyes. Your safety helmets also is important in protecting your scalp from the chemical and from blunt trauma that may happen with a broken hose or a slip and fall on a hard surface.

Rubber Boots – Wearing rubber boots and keeping them for only plant health care work is smart. Your feet walk through the mist from spraying and they get chemicals spilled on them. Make sure they do not have any leaks. It is a good idea to take them off without using your hands – try to buy them the right size so you can slip them off.

Disinfectant Wipes – Since chemicals can be transferred to any surface that you touch, utilize disinfectant wipes while in the field and make note of any areas that need a thorough cleaning when you get back to the shop. It is a good idea to bring your lunch in metal container, that way you are sure that no chemicals are touching your food in transport. Wipe down the steering wheel and seats of your truck before you touch anything with your hands. Everything that you touch with your gloves on, or from spills gets contaminated with residue from the chemicals.

If we have learned just one thing from COVID19, it is that it is very difficult not to touch your face or other parts of your body – remember that everything you touch could be contaminated by chemicals – WIPE THE SURFACES DOWN WITH A DISINFECTANT WIPE!

These are just small ideas to think about when working with chemicals – sometimes they do not receive the warnings that they deserve. Whatever chemicals you are working with just be safe about it – think through all the scenarios that might come up during the day where you could have contaminated yourself. Maybe have a group safety meeting and think of all the ways that chemicals can contaminate your workspace. If you do not have anyone working with you, think about the chemical contacts you do during the course of the workday and how you can possibly do better in the future controlling the chemical contaminants.

Above all – be safe!

Written by: Dawn Thierbach

Maintaining Focus at Work

by | Apr 6, 2020 | Safety | 0 comments

Maintaining Focus at Work

To say there are some extraordinary distractions going on right now would be an understatement. Whether we’re worried about avoiding coronavirus or getting a job done in time, it is important that all of us remember the dangers of the task at hand.

As you know, one of the main causes for accidents is lack of attention. Below are a few tips to help your employee’s regain maintain their focus at the workplace and ensure they are getting home safe each night.

A Conscious Effort
I hope at this point every company has at least had an organized discussion as to how it will handle the COVID-19 situation. Washing hands, driving personal vehicles (See Eric’s tip on personal vehicles), and minimizing face to face interactions with clients are just a few of the practices we’ve been seeing tree services implement over the last month or so.

The question is, do these changes in the way things are done have an impact on job-site safety? I’d argue that they do. It is more than likely these changes of routine have your employee’s thinking about the likelihood of them contracting the virus while at work. A wandering mind, especially in arboriculture, can have a significant impact on the likelihood of an accident.

Make sure you are continuing to perform your job-site inspections and regular safety meetings ON TOP of the discussions you’re having with regards to COVID-19. Consider how new practices can bring in new distractions, and ask your employees if there is anything they feel uncertain about with the changes. Making a conscious effort to continue a strong safety culture in regards to your actual tree work will go a long way in making sure there isn’t a spike in accidents during this period.

Emphasize Importance of Presence
According to OSHA, the top 4 causes for workplace fatalities are struck bys, caught ins, falls, and electrocutions, all of which are obvious hazards in arboriculture. It is often a split second decision that creates these hazards and it is important to stress being present to your employees while they are on the job.

Encourage your employees to take small breaks more frequently and remind them to be aware of their surroundings. Implement a checklist or a process to make sure employees are following COVID-19 guidelines prior to beginning actual work so they don’t have to multitask. Make sure, as the owner, you’re giving your crews more time to get jobs done and prioritize jobs by importance as much as possible.

Ultimately we want to be able to provide a workplace that is as close to normal so employee’s are able to focus on what is directly in front of them.

Limit Other Distractions
We’re also susceptible to distractions at the job-site outside of COVID-19 concerns. Try to limit some of the following:

1) Unnecessary Noises – It may not be the case for everyone, but foreign noises such as radio, joking around, and cell phones can be distracting to some employees, taking their mind away from what they are working on.

2) Cellphone Use – Many companies will have different standards in terms of allowing employees to use their phones. Emphasize the dangers of distracted driving if you have employees driving personal vehicles that don’t usually drive for your company, and at the very least limit cell phone use to in the vehicles when at the job-site.

3) Stay Organized – If you don’t already have one, create a system to make sure things are staying organized and delegate responsibilities to your employees to make sure their gear is in check.

4) Home Life – Create an open line of communication so employee’s know that home life comes first and you don’t want them to be worried about any issues outside of work while at a job-site.

Given the circumstances, now is a time to boost safety standards even more than before. Do what you can to make your employees feel safe at work and not be worried about COVID-19 while they are up in a bucket or operating a chipper. Limiting outside distractions as much as possible will help keep the employees present and focused on the task in front of them leading to a safer workplace.

If you have any questions on COVID-19 guidelines or concerns as to how this has impacted your business, feel free to reach out to Eric or I and we’ll do our best to help!

Written by: Malcolm Jeffris, CTSP

Coronavirus Safety for Arborists

by | Mar 16, 2020 | Safety | 0 comments

Coronavirus Safety for Arborists

By now, everyone has been inundated with information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding the Coronavirus, however, I have yet to see an article directly relating to the unique exposures that a tree care company has to the virus.

Unfortunately, many arborists are not that concerned with contracting the virus because they work outside and do not have much exposure to other people.

This can be a very dangerous attitude to take especially in an industry with a labor shortage, so I wanted to outline a few areas to consider within your tree care company to limit the spread of any illness throughout your entire team. These are, of course, in addition to the guidelines already posted by the CDC.

Are your company issued PPE’s actually personal? – If your safety equipment (specifically, helmets, eye protection, face shields, chaps, respirators) is not being assigned to a specific employee, now is the time to get out the Sharpie and start writing someone’s name on each piece.

Trucks – Place a container of sanitizing wipes in each truck and make a thorough wipe down of the interior of the cab (including the door handles, steering wheel, gear shifter, radio controls, door locks and window controls) part of your pre and post trip inspections.

Chainsaws and other Handheld Equipment – Just like the trucks, sanitize any hand held equipment after each new person uses the equipment and at the end of each day.

Video Conferencing – Utilize technology like Zoom or Webex to deliver your safety meetings and the morning crew duties and assignments to limit the amount of face to face interaction.

Electronic Proposal Delivery – Just like using technology to talk with your team members, implementing an electronic proposal delivery system helps minimize spreading germs directly to and from customers. It also has the added benefit of streamlining paper processing time for you office crew.

Remote Office – Speaking of your office crew, using a cloud based remote desktop server, your office team can be fully operational anywhere in the world. If you are not yet using a cloud server, hopefully the current situation we are in will give you added incentive to get one in place. It also will double as information security in case of a large loss at your office, like a fire or tornado.

By no means is this list all-inclusive, so take a few moments and think about every aspect of a team member’s day and how you can limit their exposure to germs inside your shop and out on the jobsite. Doing this will certainly reduce the risk of your employees contracting the virus at work.

Written by: Eric Petersen

1 Storm – 4 lives

by | Nov 26, 2019 | Safety | 0 comments

1 Storm – 4 Lives. When will enough be enough?

Storms ripped through northern Wisconsin on July 19th and 20th, 2019 toppling thousands of trees and causing a tremendously dangerous cleanup effort, which in turn ended in tragedy for 4 individuals. Four separate deaths have been reported from tree cleanup activities related to this storm. Four!!

While the details about each of these events are still under investigation, multiple factors played a role in these four families being changed forever.

Were these individuals Certified Arborists or have any training in professional tree care? Were they getting paid to do the storm cleanup work or just helping out a friend or neighbor? I don’t know those answers and not to sound crass, frankly I don’t care. They died and they shouldn’t have.

How can we as an industry still allow this to happen? How can we as human beings still allow this to happen?

After attending my first ANSI Z133 meeting this past April as a guest, I made a commitment to myself and the people that I work with both on my team and my clients that I would read every one of the Accident Briefs in the TCIA Magazine to learn even more about what is happening every day in the tree care industry. Reading these small articles does one major thing for me, it pisses me off. It pisses me off that people are still dying and severely injuring themselves almost daily.

It’s said that the pain of change is only acceptable when the pain of remaining stagnant is unbearable. Well I’ve hit that point. One storm and four deaths is unacceptable.

While traveling home from the second Z meeting that I have attended I could not help but write this article as I feel responsible that four of my fellow Wisconsinites won’t be celebrating Christmas this year. They won’t be able to enjoy another Green Bay Packer Super Bowl victory or be able to choose to retire when they want. Their fate was sealed and now all that is left are a bunch of “what if’s”.

So where are you going with this Eric? Every one of us has a responsibility to ourselves and our community (family members, neighbors, employees, coworkers) to help put an end to this mayhem. Pick up a copy of the Z133. Study it. Ask questions about it. Talk to everyone you can about it. But most importantly, follow it! These safety standards were written in blood. Don’t let the next one be written about your blood or someone’s that you love.

Join me in the fight that together we can make a difference and help every arborist get home safe each night.

Written by: Eric Petersen

Peer to Peer Gear Inspection

by | Nov 4, 2019 | Safety | 0 comments

Peer to Peer Gear Inspection

By Peggy Drescher

The first step to an accident involves the false belief that experience makes you invulnerable. Seventy-five percent (75%) of all work-related fatalities in the United States come from making a mistake while doing routine work.

Every year at the International Society of Arboriculture International Tree Climbing Championship – World Championship, they hold a gear inspection for climbers and volunteers. Guidelines are maintained regarding competition gear and all competitors and all volunteers who will be working aloft during a competition or its set-up must submit to an inspection of all equipment and equipment systems before entering an event safety zone. This is one of the most important aspects of this competition. If your gear does not pass inspection, you do not participate unless it is corrected and passed by the head judge.

Why not take this routine and build it into your safety program? Although employees should be checking their gear on a daily basis, thoughts like, “I checked it yesterday, my gear is all right, I’ve climbed on it a hundred times, nothings gone wrong, etc.” normalizing and complacency can get in the way.

One way to combat this issue is to do a peer to peer gear inspection on a monthly basis. Some tips to get this going in your company.

You need commitment if you want to establish and sustain an effective new program so make sure you and your management/safety team are on board. You are steering the ship!
Write it into your safety policy. For example, we will perform a peer to peer gear inspection every month on the first Wednesday after dispatch.

Explain it to your crew why this is important and that this is to support the idea of helping each other out. It is not to bust people – it is because you care about each other and another set of eyes is always helpful. It is to correct a conflict with equipment that could cause an accident.
This can be a great way to mentor new employees. Have a veteran employee paired up with a newer employee. Hopefully this will help to invite questions from your crew as to why someone may think the gear is lacking in some way. It is imperative that your employees feel comfortable asking questions and bringing issues up to each other. Or perhaps you can have the crew that is working together that day check each other’s gear out.

Always have a specific area designated for this inspection. Whether this is outside or in a corner of your shop, a dedicated space brings validity to the importance of the gear check and eliminates an excuse for not doing it.

If something has to be taken out of service you must have a backup inventory so there isn’t temptation to ask or allow someone to use the flawed gear for the sake of production.

Train employees on how to properly inspect equipment. Explain it is your duty as part of the Z-133 safety requirements.

Gear inspection should be a dialog, a safe place for employees and management to talk to each other. Encourage your team to take not only responsibility for themselves but others too!

Here are some other helpful links surrounding safety and gear checks…

https://www.itcc-isa.com/Portals/0/Docs/2018-ITCC-Gear-Check-Form.pdf

https://www.itcc-isa.com/Portals/0/docs/rules_Equipment_2016GearCheckInstructions.pdf

Who Your Safety Director is Matters

by | Oct 29, 2019 | Safety | 0 comments

Who Your Safety Director Is Matters

A Safety Director is an important position in your company. But why do we just put any person available in this position? We, as an industry, must put a person in the Safety Director’s position that is fully equipped for the job. We sometimes give this position the last thought when hiring people. Why is that? Safety is the most important part of our job; yet we do not want to spend the resources into hiring the right person to fill the Safety Director position. A proper Safety Director can make or break your tree care business. Improper handling of the staff can create chaos in your company; proper handling of the staff will create a culture in your business where safety flourishes.

To fill the Safety Director position, you must find a person who is fluent with climbing skills, grounds person skills, equipment guidelines, PHC guidelines and MSDS rules, ANSI Z and OSHA Standards, computer skills, record keeping, training skills, middle management skills, etc. He or she must be familiar with all these skills – excellent at some, good at others, but able to perform all of them. He or she must be a strong personality that can handle safety infractions and incidents with a calm manner. This may include things such as a consequence schedule established for safety infractions – first offense warning, second offense suspension, third offense termination. At all times, the Safety Director should be seeking out information to help educate themselves and then educate their crews.

All these actions are hard on the Safety Director – to take disciplinary actions and apply them to crew members, and at times what used to be fellow crew members. They need to establish a culture that promotes safety. They need to be available to have safety talks with each crew or individually. They need to be understanding and firm at the same time.

Make sure you choose a level headed person for this position. Do extensive interviews, ask the right questions, have the person applying for the position do a performance test such as climb the tree, run the chipper, or PHC treatments. There is nothing wrong in testing their knowledge. After all, your crew’s safety and your money are on the line.

Make sure as a company owner you fill the position with a qualified person for the Safety Director position. Make sure they have enough well-rounded experience; your crews will recognize a Safety Director that is trying too hard to convince the crews of his knowledge in some area or acts like an expert – and in all truth is not an expert. Choose someone that the company can trust and is a welcome help rather than a hindrance.

For more help with your hiring and recruiting needs, contact an ArboRisk crew member today!

Written by: Dawn Thierbach