Regular Chemical Training – a Must for Every Company

Three separate chemical mixing incidents occurred in a two-week span in November. The incidents occurred in two restaurants and a nursing home. In each case, staff improperly mixed cleaners, causing evacuations of the locations and sadly, in one instance, the death of an employee. According to reports, the incompatible cleaners produced toxic gases which created hazardous conditions and affected dozens of employees.

These incidents are truly tragedies and can be avoided. But how?

Focus on Continuous Training in Cleaning and Hygiene
According to OSHA’s Hazardous Communication (HazCom) Standard, employee training is a critical part of workplace safety and should be an integral part of a company’s culture of regulatory compliance.

HazCom training is one of the most commonly overlooked elements of a safety program and employers struggle to make it effective, engaging, and relevant.

A common misconception about training is that OSHA requires employers to conduct annual refresher training. The reality is that the agency expects employees to be trained before they begin working with hazardous chemicals, whenever a new hazard is introduced into the workplace, and if there’s evidence that previous training wasn’t effective.

Additional training considerations should include reinforcing key concepts regularly, catching new hires in the training cycle, and providing new updates on regulatory issues. The OHS believes using HazCom training as an annual task can actually be harmful by causing training programs to become stale, jeopardizing employee safety and compliance. Instead, company training materials should be refreshed and updated regularly to ensure the content is relevant and current.

The investment in training is an investment in employees and customers.

Making Training Impactful

1. Get out of the conference room
   Don’t rely solely on visual aids and power points. Move the course to a different facility, a different floor, a customer location or any place that will ensure a higher level of application understanding. Demonstrating real-life implications of course material engages workers more than a classroom setting. It’s also a great opportunity to test your people on the core elements in the settings where they will apply the concepts.
2. Keep diversity top of mind
   OSHA requires workers be trained in a language and manner they understand. This means employers must account for non-English-speaking employees. The more workers you have, the less likely it is that a “one size fits all” approach to training will work.
3. Don’t forget the millennials
   Consider looking for ways to deliver training to fit the learning styles of tech-savvy millennials and more traditionally defined Gen Xers, Gen Yers and baby boomers. A good on-demand training solution offers an extensive library of flexible online courses with content that is interactive. Shorter training courses are particularly appealing to millennial workers, while multi-language options help ensure all employees understand the information being conveyed.

Employee access to proper dilution control equipment
Dilution control equipment minimizes the potential for mixing chemicals and creating hazardous situations. Facilities should implement programs to ensure cleaning products are diluted correctly each and every time and to prevent the improper mixing of chemicals. Staff who are tasked with cleaning facilities deserve to have the proper tools at their disposal. Dilution units should be clearly labeled with the right cleaning solutions and the correct applications.

Be ready for OSHA inspection
2019 final statistics show a significant increase in the number of inspections and a record amount of compliance assistance to further the mission of ensuring that employers provide workplaces free of hazards. Evaluating, refining and tracking your training program for chemical handling is a critical part of your success.

A strong training program and proper dilution control will create and foster a safer work environment and a great experience for customers.

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Thanks to Campbell Dodson, Co-Founder of Lavo Solutions, for providing this expert insight article for Vital Threads. If you have information concerning an industry-related topic, we would love to hear from you! Please email Nicole Morris at nmorris@almnet.org with any submissions.