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#55: How we can return to work the right way - COVID-19 Special
66 Plays5 years ago
In this special COVID-19 episode, podcast series host Jill James speaks with Lorraine Martin, President & CEO of the National Safety Council. This is Lorraine's 2nd time on the podcast, having joined us for a live recording at the 2019's National Safety Congress and Expo in San Diego. The National Safety Council is the nation's leading safety advocate; last week NSC announced an effort to help employers create safe workplaces in a post Coronavirus world. The effort is called SAFER: Safe Actions for Employee Returns. Jill & Lorraine discuss the effort. This truly is an essential podcast episode!
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. This is a special edition of the podcast recorded April 24th, 2020. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Lorraine Martin, President and CEO of the National Safety Council. This is Lorraine's second time on the podcast, having joined us on episode 37 for a live recording at the 2019 National Safety Congress and Expo in San Diego.
Introduction to SAFER Initiative
00:00:39
Speaker
The National Safety Council is the nation's leading safety advocate and earlier this week, the NSC announced an effort to help employers create safe workplaces in a post coronavirus world. The effort is called SAFER, Safe Actions for Employee Returns. Lorraine, welcome back to the show. Jill, thank you for having me. So Lorraine, what is SAFER, other than what the acronym I just talked about? What does it mean?
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. SAFER really is an initiative that was begun by the National Safety Council but has now been joined by a variety of organizations across our nation really to help employers understand what's going to be most important now and probably for months and maybe even years to come to ensure that their workplaces
00:01:28
Speaker
are safe for their employees, safe for their customers, and that they can resume the operations they need so that America can come back up and get its engine running. So it really is about industry helping industry, government coming together, ensuring that we have a central location for the best practices, practices perhaps that have actually been tested out perhaps around the globe since some of these companies are global and they've come up
00:01:54
Speaker
and been able to put some of these things through trial and error in other locations and really refine them and enable us to create what we're calling sort of generic playbooks, various different industry sectors to enable them to have the best possible understanding and practices of how they're going to help their employees navigate and their workplace be safe.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, and you had mentioned that you have some partners that have been part of this. Can you talk a little bit about that? What kind of companies are making up this partnership or are you calling it a task force or how does that work? It's a task force, yes.
Collaboration and Playbooks for Workplace Safety
00:02:33
Speaker
We certainly have gotten lots of calls and offers from some of the largest Fortune 500 household names, which is amazing.
00:02:42
Speaker
They have come knocking at the door and said, we have practices we do not consider, in this case, safety to be proprietary. This is something that we want to share and make sure that other companies, especially small and midsize that are in the same kind of business as we are, that they have the benefit of our learning. And this can be all the way from McDonald's to Uber to BNSF to
00:03:06
Speaker
folks like Walgreens who really again have global operations and they've really been in the forefront of understanding how to how to navigate some of this new health situation and health public health related issues that we now find in our workplace. But in addition to the sort of you know kind of household names and and large companies we also are partnering with the CDC and NIOSH as part of the task force and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which gives us then
00:03:35
Speaker
that great reach to the voice of industry here in the United States. Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. So you mentioned playbooks and you mentioned playbooks by industry and I'm sure that many of our listeners, safety and health professionals around the United States, their ears just perked up about that. So can you talk a little bit about what's the timeline for these playbooks and are there any other deliverables?
00:04:02
Speaker
as well that you're working on. Yeah, thank you. And we just formed the task force. We put out the press release, I think, two days ago. So thank you for having us on so quickly, mostly so that we can see if there are others that would like to contribute. And, you know, we have gotten, you know, literally dozens of employees, practices and playbooks provided to us so that we can start to call them into more generic practices and very specifically address sort of generally what should workplaces be doing now and in the future. And then
00:04:32
Speaker
What are some of these sort of sector unique things that you need for construction or you need transportation for drivers and handling of packaging? And so there will be some unique guidelines for each of the sectors. We're going to begin to start have material out on the nsc.org slash safer beginning next week. So that's the final week of April. And then all the way through May, there'll be a schedule for releasing some more of the materials and more of the guidelines.
Addressing Post-Pandemic Challenges
00:05:02
Speaker
In addition to addressing the standard workplace policies and procedures we need, we'll also have materials on things like mental health in the workplace as a result of this sort of traumatic event that not only our employees, but our companies and their leadership have all gone through.
00:05:19
Speaker
Some things having to do with sort of HR policy and even where we can, how to look at things like workers comp. So all of these things that every company will be wrestling with, we would like to try to sort of lessen the burden on all of us looking at and exploring the same topics and provide a place where you can have sort of some templates and some guidelines of whatever you need to do uniquely for your environment, for your risk, you at least have some place to start.
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, right. So that everyone isn't burdened with trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, in a time where really we are inventing it, but we're coming together as a nation of employers to help one another. So Lorraine, it sounds like the playbooks that you're putting together, you said you'll start releasing some of them next week, but you're also continuing to look for
00:06:08
Speaker
Um, more to come your way from, from specific industry sectors. Is that correct? If someone wants to offer up their, their playbook? Absolutely. We would welcome that with open arms and you can, you know, come to us at NSC.org and just, uh, let us know on that page. You can also see where, if you'd like to play either to contribute, um, and of course to, to use some of the resources. And as we said, that'll get populated, um, or richly over the next month or so.
00:06:38
Speaker
Right, right. And so the culling, if you will, of the playbooks and putting them together, is that being done by this task force you put together in combination with the thinkers at NSC? Or how does that piece work? You've got it. OK. So we've started some of that. And many of the task force members have already offered some of their safety experts to be not only reviewers, but collaborators on creating the material.
00:07:07
Speaker
It's just been absolutely amazing. Not only how readily folks offered up their material, but to say, here's my person here. He helped build our policy, or she was on the forefront of implementing our policy. Here's their names. Let us know how we can help.
00:07:26
Speaker
Yeah. Fabulous. Well, you were right. You said earlier that safety isn't a proprietary and it never has been. Our professional practice, that's always been one thing that's true about all of us. We're all so willing to share with one another and boy, it's certainly being exemplified right now. It is.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, so Lorraine, there are state and national discussions about restarting the economy. Do you think those discussions are focused on the right things right now? Or what's the conversation that NSC is having around
Local Management of Reopening
00:08:02
Speaker
that? Yeah, no, that's a great question. And every state and every local government has got to do what's right for their people, right for what's going on in their location since this pandemic is not constant across
00:08:16
Speaker
all locations and even all industries. So it's really important that those decisions and those discussions be done locally and with the relevance of what is happening for that area. But that makes it challenging for companies to get to some degree because many of them are in multiple locations. And as I said before, global. So usually we like things to be done uniformly when we think of public health or even safety recommendations. And this is one where
00:08:45
Speaker
We really do have to sort of take it at the right speed in time for what's going on in a given area. At the same time, I would say, no matter where a location is or where a local government has chosen to put in policies or restrictions, now is the time for us all to be talking about
00:09:03
Speaker
what are the right ways for us to come back up safely or to enable our current workforce that is working in critical infrastructure to work safely as we move forward. So at just as you always want to be prepared for a crisis ahead of time, you know, you hope it never happens, but you've got all your playbooks and you know how you handle it. We need to right now ensure we've got our ways of handling coming back to workforce, bringing up some of the industries that have had to shut down and shelter.
00:09:31
Speaker
to ensure we do that safely. And now is the time regardless of local restrictions and the differentiation of that across our nation, being ready is the responsibility for us all. Yeah, exactly. And it sounds like many of these organizations, the critical infrastructure who have
00:09:50
Speaker
who have continued to work throughout this could also benefit from the playbooks that are being put together because everyone has been trying to decide, you know, somewhat figure out on the fly how to implement the safety hierarchy, if you will.
00:10:07
Speaker
and trying to figure out what do we do. And sometimes those pivots have been needing to have developed daily, if not hourly, depending on what we continue to learn. And so these playbooks will be very valuable assets for those companies as well.
00:10:27
Speaker
Absolutely. And we learn something every day, not only about what is safe in this public health dynamic, but also what the recommendations are from the scientists and, and even how the disease itself progresses so that there's nothing standing still here.
Workplace Presence During Pandemic
00:10:42
Speaker
And so safety recommendations and protocols, you know, have to have to move with that. We did a survey pretty early on of all of our member companies and we have this rich sort of, you know, benefit of having 16,000 members
00:10:55
Speaker
That we can ask, you know, whatever we might need to know about something and it's going to be representative really across US industry and we ask them all, you know, how many of them still had employees that were working.
00:11:07
Speaker
in their traditional workspace. They considered critical infrastructure. It was 32% of the members had people still going to work. So a lot of us, like you and me, who are sitting in our homes, we kind of can get that lost that many companies have had to weather through this and figure it out inch by inch. Absolutely, these playbooks are going to be a broader set of learning practices they may not have thought about, things that we've learned incrementally. And one of the things that I know
00:11:37
Speaker
All of us are going to be interested in is how we can use some of the testing capabilities that eventually hopefully will be much more broadly available so that the workplace can also incorporate that into how we come back up and run, how
Importance of Testing for Reopening
00:11:52
Speaker
we consider who can come into the workplace, who should come into the workplace. This new understanding that a lot of the symptoms are not necessarily the only way for us to understand, including temperature, that someone might be infectious or sick is something that really, that's a learning. That's something we haven't known the whole time and puts the testing protocols and testing kits and testing resources so much more at the front of
00:12:17
Speaker
industry being able to come back up safely. So, we just recently separate from the safer initiative with about 50 different organizations put a note into the federal government's task force under Vice President Pence that said, as testing materials are available, after we deal with the highest priority for them, we need to consider how workplaces are going to have them made available to them as we bring the workplaces back online.
00:12:45
Speaker
Right. And I think we'll see that differentiate like you had mentioned before, state by state, locality by locality as well. My home state, which is Minnesota, just our governor did a call, which he's calling the Minnesota moonshot.
00:13:03
Speaker
for the healthcare industries in my state, the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic and other health partners to develop testing protocols to test 40,000 people, I believe it is a week, which will likely lead the nation. And so we have a lot to learn from that as well and how that's going to trickle into employment settings too.
00:13:27
Speaker
as well as, you know, contact tracing. I think that'll be something that'll be coming on the forefront for all of us as well and, you know, ways that NSC can help lead with that as well as lots of other organizations. Like what will that look like for employers? Absolutely. And we have seen industry lead in all kinds of things for our nation and employers have led for safety, safety technologies, safety protocols, just standard safety and made such huge
00:13:57
Speaker
huge strides. I am certain industry will do that here too. And we'll be on the forefront of helping us bring the nation back online. But we tools like testing or like tracking that are going to be really important for us to know how do we get them into the hands of employers who will do the right thing and make sure that we do this safely. But we there are some things we're going to have to collaborate on.
00:14:20
Speaker
Right, right. How do you how do you expect or what are you hearing from your stakeholders about expected timing and other protocols for reopening businesses across the country? Yeah, that's the million dollar question. Right. When is it safe and how are we going to do this? And certainly if you turn on the news, you're going to you're going to hear that, you know, within 10 minutes of the program. You know, usually we do like things to be uniform and we're all doing the same things and we know what the right answer is.
00:14:49
Speaker
For opening something up or going into operation. This really is going to have to be done appropriate to the location appropriate to the disease migration. And over time, literally, and how it happens month over month over month.
00:15:04
Speaker
And then very specifically for the risk profile and the operation of the employer, the industries where, you know, asking for two human beings to be six feet apart is very challenging. I was talking to a construction firm that's, you know, putting up drywall. You can't put it up by yourself, you know, and instruction is considered to go forward and they've had to figure out how do you, you know, enable those two employees to almost be elbow to elbow. But there are other, other situations where, you know, the timing and the protocols will be,
00:15:34
Speaker
much more parent force, office environments. Well, they will be challenging, um, rooms and turnstiles and, and, you know, hallways, all of those things will be challenging, but there'll be a way to design the ability for employees to come into work. If that's necessary safely, it may be, you know, staggered, staggered work weeks. It may mean, um, you know, shifts that are smaller in size and different, um, you know, different, uh, work shift hours.
00:16:03
Speaker
So it's all going to be able to be designed, but it's going to take some effort. You want to make sure that we do it safely and employees feel comfortable, but some of those environments will be a little bit easier to accommodate. So, you know, when and how has to be taken both locally and by industry. And as I said before, but now's the time to make sure we know what our tools are that we have in our toolbox to do it safely within those environments.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah. When the time is right. And speaking about when the time is right, do you think it is the time to be talking about reopening non-essential businesses?
Guidelines for Assessing Risk Profiles
00:16:44
Speaker
That's really not my call as the National Council, but I will say that I do think every employer needs to look at the risk profiles and we'll be providing some guidelines for thinking about where you are on that risk profile regarding your operation and the information that you have.
00:17:03
Speaker
And making that decision, you know, on behalf of your business and employees, as I said before, the right thing to do, though, is to make sure when people need to make that decision or feel comfortable, make the decision that we've given them all the safety protocols and practices that would be warranted at that time.
00:17:20
Speaker
Right, right. Well, I'd love to hear that you're working on a risk profile. I think that will be another really great tool for employers as they're trying to decide their timing and when is it right for them in their state, their locality as well. Yeah, you saw that the national government did sort of this phase one, phase two, phase three. And that's important because you always want to know where you are and how do you
00:17:44
Speaker
How do you think about what you can de-risk to go forward and what are those actions? That plan didn't have a lot on really workplace risk profiles and going on that same kind of journey. And so we'll be looking to do something that kind of goes in parallel with that.
00:18:02
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. You know, I've been thinking a lot recently about, you know, back to what I learned when I was working in my graduate degree in safety and one of my one of my professors, shout out to Harvard Bursky, who taught me about the OSHA regulations.
00:18:20
Speaker
When we were first introduced to the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 as a student, one of the things that we were meant to memorize was this part of the OSHA Act that says that the work is to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources.
00:18:48
Speaker
And I really see that the work that the NSC is doing right now is really to meet that call and to meet that need of the act from way back then. And you still could recite it there, I see it stuck. It did, it did stuck. It's kind of like, you know, if you were ever a girl scout or someone was a boy scout, you had that, you know, you had your thing that you would, the pledge that you would say, and that one stuck in my head. And it's very apropos because
00:19:17
Speaker
While it was, you know, written many several decades ago, the world changes and clearly the world changed under our feet in just the last couple months. But that challenge is still the same to keep everyone safe and to keep humanity in a whole state so we can live our fullest lives. And having employment and ensuring that we do that in a safe way and keep our economy and our livelihoods running is what this is all about. And that safety challenge has just been
00:19:45
Speaker
sort of exacerbated here by a public health challenge that we have to, we have to find a way to partner and navigate. And so employers and employees can be safe. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Lorraine, is there anything else you'd like to add about SAFER and its plans? And for our listeners, we'll be putting in the show notes links to the NSC, specifically to the page that you're talking about, Lorraine. But what else would you like to add?
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Today you'll find a description and you'll find the folks that have signed on to contribute, not only materials, but also their intellectual
00:20:22
Speaker
support to make sure we get the right kind of playbooks out to everybody. If you're interested in sharing great, joining the task force, just let us know. That would be wonderful. And then stay tuned over the next six weeks or so as stuff starts to be provided out. And please share it. We do know that a lot of companies are strapped for resources right now. If they've been on hold, they don't have cash.
00:20:47
Speaker
And the thing we don't want them to needlessly spend resources on is duplicating playbooks and resources to help them come up safely. We want them to be able to come to this resource, especially small and mid-sized companies, to be able to get the benefit of what some of the larger, more global companies have already invested in and have graciously said, please hear you. So reach out to others that you can recommend to come.
00:21:12
Speaker
Um, to the resources as we make them available and then just, you know, just know that many times, you know, our employers have been asked to step up to a challenge, whether it's, you know, in a given area with a hurricane or fires or other kinds of issues that that we've all wrestled with.
00:21:29
Speaker
Throughout our lives, and this will be, this will be the same employers will rise to the challenge, but we will need to do it together. And it's a fairly, it's a fairly formidable. You know, new state for us to be thinking about navigating. I was talking to someone just the other day and said, is a term that. Only a safety geeks and people who are, you know, my risk, you know, manufacturing, instructing environments and all of a sudden the entire globe knows what is.
00:21:57
Speaker
Could feel good about that, but at the same time. Oh, it's true. It's absolutely true. Safety and health professionals have always known you could only say PPE with your own kind. Now, we can say it without having to explain what that means. Exactly. It means, though, that
00:22:18
Speaker
There's a heightened sensitivity and apprehension and anxiety, all of us to be safe. And we always have that when we're worried about our steel-toed shoes and make sure our toes were fine. And now it's making sure that our health and our wellbeing can be sound as we do our jobs and enable services to be provided and enable the engine that is this amazing country and this globe to come online.
Role of Safe Employment in Economic Recovery
00:22:43
Speaker
making sure that everybody's safe as we do that is paramount. And truthfully, you know, I'll end by saying how we address this as a nation of how workplaces can come back online safely will in large part drive how we get through the pandemic because we have to get to the other side of our economy coming back and safe employment is at the core of that.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah. Preserving our human resources. Absolutely. Absolutely. Lorraine, thank you so much. Really appreciate the work of the NSC and your leadership in this endeavor. And we will definitely be spreading the word and our listeners of the podcast, I'm sure will be spreading the word, but also wanting to check out those playbooks and consume them. And probably some will be offering their voices to help as well.
00:23:35
Speaker
Thank you, Jill, and thank you for sharing the word. We're all together. We certainly are. And thank you for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day.
Community Engagement and Subscription Call to Action
00:23:50
Speaker
If you'd like to join the conversation about this episode or any of our previous episode, follow our Facebook page and join the Accidental Safety Pro community group. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player you'd like. You can also find all the episodes at vividlearningsystems.com slash podcast.
00:24:13
Speaker
And if you could leave us a rating and review us on iTunes, it would really help us connect the show with more and more safety and health professionals like Lorraine and Ive. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's yourself, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Special thanks to Will Moss, our podcast producer. Until next time, thanks for listening.