Six groups of people who require special attention in safety education (published in China Work Safety News)

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Six types of people who require special attention in safety education – A brief discussion on safety education for employees in private hazardous materials enterprises. Zhejiang Luntu Co., Ltd., Hu Rubin. Zhejiang is a province with a highly developed private enterprise sector, and its employment mechanisms are relatively flexible. Therefore, some private enterprises have become the main sources of employment, but at the same time they are also areas where low-educated labor force is concentrated. Their educational level is generally low, and even a few of them are illiterate ； High mobility; often changes jobs ； Lack of safety awareness and skills. On the one hand, they generate profits for the company through their hard work, but at the same time, they also pose challenges to the company’s safety management. Especially in high-risk enterprises involved in the production and operation of hazardous chemicals, if their training and education are inadequate and there is a lack of safety skills training, they become like landmines along the path of the enterprise’s development, threatening its progress. The extensive use of migrant workers in hazardous chemicals enterprises has posed a serious problem and challenge for such enterprises, especially those in Zhejiang Province. In response to the large number of migrant workers in enterprises, the Zhejiang Provincial Work Safety Supervision Bureau launched a program for comprehensive safety training in 2006, aiming to provide basic work safety education to 10 million workers of various types; the goal was to train all workers in production and business units across the province within about two years. It is quite difficult to carry out this task well; sustained joint efforts from all parties are required in order to provide effective safety education for enterprises. However, in some companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, current training programs are often mere formalities, lack relevance, and are of poor quality. Some carry out training and education activities perfunctorily, just to meet the requirements of higher authorities, without considering the effectiveness of such training; they focus only on the quantity of training activities rather than their quality. Luntu Co., Ltd. is a large private chemical enterprise specialized in the production of dyes, dye intermediates, and dye additives. The operators on the production line are mostly migrant workers from all over the country. Not only do they face barriers in verbal communication, but their cultural foundation is also relatively weak; approximately 25% of migrant workers have an elementary or middle school education level. The current quality of employees makes it more difficult for the company to ensure safe production, and certain violations of regulations continue to occur despite repeated attempts to put an end to them. The production process involves a large number of various hazardous chemicals or dangerous product intermediates, such as ethylene oxide, liquid ammonia, liquid chlorine, bromine, benzene derivatives, triacids and dibases, dimethyl sulfate, diazonium salts, and so on; among them are also highly toxic substances. They all possess hazardous properties such as flammability, explosiveness, toxicity, corrosivity, and environmental pollution; moreover, the chemical reaction processes involve typical hazardous reactions such as diazotization, sulfonation, nitration, and alkylation. The sequence of material addition, the speed at which materials are added, and the amount of material added, along with the operation of various valves on site, any minor error in these aspects can lead to serious safety incidents such as fires, explosions, or chemical leaks, as well as environmental pollution. Faced with factors that pose risks to people, how can we quickly and effectively raise their safety awareness and equip them with safety skills to ensure safe production? The senior management of Luntu Shares actively explores various training methods to ensure that safety training is effectively implemented. During the process of providing safety training to employees, attention is paid to listening to their feedback. By taking into account the actual production conditions of the company, the training methods and content are continuously adjusted as needed to improve the efficiency of the training, with regular communication held with the employees. To ensure the effective implementation of safety education, the company focused on strengthening training for six types of employees, providing targeted education and training for them. The specific steps are as follows ； I. New employees: Ensure they are qualified for work and carry out thorough three-level safety training. The company’s human resources department recruits anywhere from thirty to forty new employees per month, or even up to a hundred; over 90% of them are migrant workers. They do not arrive at the factory all at once, but rather gradually – three today, two the day after. This poses difficulties for safety training and education. For this reason. We first provide new employees with separate face-to-face training on the company, production plants (workshops), and teams, after which a mentor is assigned to them for 9 days of on-the-job training, focusing on familiarizing themselves with the working environment, learning operating procedures, and developing emergency response skills. Independent operation can be carried out after passing the assessment. As part of the monthly safety training programs, the company’s safety management department arranges additional focused training sessions, or lectures on relevant topics such as safety management systems, laws and regulations, production safety knowledge, occupational health knowledge, and past accident cases, depending on the number of new employees. Based on the lecture content and their experiences from on-the-job learning*, we also answered on-site any safety issues or questions they encountered during the production process. In addition, we also organized activities such as showing new employees the safety education video titled \"Safety Education for New Workers in the Chemical Industry\". Strengthen new employees’ safety awareness and skills through various forms of training. For new employees, thorough three-level safety education should be provided to improve the quality of such education; strict checks should be carried out before they start working, so that employees develop the mindset that \"every position comes with responsibilities, and rules must be followed when working.\" II. Team leaders: Focus on grassroots management and strengthen practical safety education. 20% of a company’s success relies on planning, while 80% depends on the execution capabilities of managers at all levels; in the case of hazardous materials companies, safe production management can only be ensured through the proactive efforts of team leaders. To this end, we have strengthened safety training for frontline team leaders. We avoid empty talk and instead focus on practicality; we hold regular lectures for them on various aspects of safety management and safety technical knowledge, based on real-world conditions. Since the beginning of this year, we have successively held sessions on how to effectively manage the safety of personnel, production equipment, hazardous materials, the working environment, and operational processes within work teams ； Safety supervision methods for various types of hazardous operations ； Methods of safety inspections, operations, and precautions for handing over safety-related matters in handover records ； Specialized training on accident emergency rescue knowledge and how to effectively carry out team safety education activities ； In light of actual production conditions, technical experts from the company’s research institute were also invited to explain the properties of common hazardous chemicals as well as knowledge related to emergency handling ； Organize the viewing of the safety education video on \"Team Safety Management in the Chemical Industry.\" Targeted training in specialized technical and management knowledge is provided through categorization. Their management skills and safety knowledge have both improved. A safety management approach of \"managing oneself well and keeping one’s own door secure\" was established. Cultivate the habit in team leaders to act in accordance with procedures, systems, and objective laws. III. Employees who violate rules: Prevent disciplinary violations and carry out thorough re-education on safety protocols related to such violations. There is a well-known concept in management known as the \"barrel theory,\" which states that the capacity of a barrel is determined by its shortest plank, and has nothing to do with its longest plank. To increase the capacity of the barrel, it is necessary to lengthen the shortest piece. In other words, 99% of the employees in a company have a high level of security awareness, but 1% have a very low level of it; as a result, the overall security level of the company remains low. To improve production safety levels, we cannot focus on compensating for our weaknesses; instead, we must constantly identify those weaknesses and work to address them. In the monthly safety performance evaluations of company employees, we identify a group of those who violate the company’s safety management systems or regulations; they lack a strong sense of safety, and their behavior involves violations of the three key safety rules. They are the \"short planks\" that affect the capacity of the barrel. If they are driven out, it will affect production and even lead to conflicts, failing to achieve the goal of treating and saving people. To address this issue, the company established a specific management system in August of this year for providing safety re-education to employees who have violated rules and regulations. The safety management department formulates targeted safety retraining programs for them on a monthly basis, organizes training classes, and holds seminars. Have them relearn the safety management systems and safety operating procedures; communicate with them, jointly analyze the causes of accidents or the roots of repeated violations, help them correct such violations, and identify the causes of accidents. Lengthen the “short plank”. Through training classes for employees who have violated rules, many of these employees not only improved their safety awareness but also enhanced their skills in safe operations. It also brought people in high-risk positions within enterprises closer together, helping them effectively identify and correct their violations of safety rules, thereby enhancing their safety awareness and operational skills. IV. Specialized operators: Ensure proper supervision of specialized operations and that workers are employed only with the required certifications. The production processes in the hazardous chemicals industry often involve many specialized operations, such as welding, gas cutting, electrical work, operation of lifting equipment, forklift driving, operation of pressure vessels, and handling of hazardous materials, among others. Special operations are prone to causing casualties, and can pose serious risks to the safety of the operators themselves, other people, as well as the surrounding facilities. Special operation personnel must undergo specialized training by the **competent authorities and pass the assessment before they can work with a valid certificate. However, in actual production processes, it has been found that a considerable number of personnel engaged in special operations or on-site managers confuse the concept of special operations. For example, equipment maintenance often requires welding work, and some people mistakenly think that machine repair workers can directly carry out welding tasks as well as wiring assembly and disassembly work ； A forklift operator only needs a motor vehicle driving license. In response to this situation, in line with the actual production needs, we have contacted qualified training institutions to provide certification training for unlicensed personnel, while also conducting regular on-site inspections to firmly stop and address any instances of working without proper licenses. Regarding unlicensed workers from outside who are involved in outsourced construction work, we urge the construction firms to make corrections within a set time frame, while also preventing such unlicensed workers from entering the construction site at the source. Therefore, in order to prevent safety incidents such as personal injuries, fires, and explosions, hazardous materials companies must pay close attention to workers who perform special tasks, enforce strict management of them, and ensure that they work with the appropriate certifications. V. Employees undergoing job transfers: For those who are transferred to new positions, thorough safety training related to the new role is necessary. Due to the company’s production needs or individual requests, a number of employees undergo job transfers each month. Some are transferred from regular production positions to dangerous or critical production positions, while others move from one dangerous position to another unfamiliar dangerous position. In an unfamiliar production environment, it is necessary to provide them with safety training at the workshop and team levels again, so that they can learn the new departmental management systems, the new safety operating procedures, as well as the knowledge required for emergency response in their new roles. To this end, we have established a safety education file for each employee, ensuring that there is one card per person and that the card stays with that individual. We record any changes in an employee’s job position, and implement a system to verify that the necessary retraining has been provided, along with specifying the content of such training. The company’s safety management department regularly checks the effectiveness of the retraining programs for employees, ensuring that no employee takes up a new role without undergoing such training or failing to pass it. Employees who are not competent for new positions should have their roles adjusted promptly. Reskilling education is a form of regular education that requires persistence and sustained effort. The content of education also varies from person to person, and it needs to be continuously adjusted and updated; therefore, it is essential to approach it with care and expertise. VI. Safety Officers: Ensure proper safety supervision and improve their own capabilities. To guarantee production safety, especially in enterprises that handle hazardous chemicals, it is necessary not only to continuously enhance the safety awareness and operational skills of the staff, but also to have a strong team dedicated to safety management. Some say that being a safety officer is a profession where one fails if nothing goes wrong, but is blamed when mistakes occur. But some people also say that being a safety officer is a profession for \"doing good deeds and practicing kindness.\" Therefore, to be a competent safety officer, one must first possess good professional ethics and integrity; secondly, they need to have adequate professional knowledge. Since frontline safety officers act as the \"woodpeckers\" on the production lines, aside from having the basic qualifications required for the job, their ability to identify potential accident hazards is the key criterion for assessing the quality of their work. To strengthen the management of the safety officer team, the company’s safety management department adopts a system that involves three regular safety meetings per month and one knowledge assessment for these officers. At the same time, the company’s safety management department also provides regular training on various types of business knowledge. Through training or regular meetings, help them identify the professional role of safety officers as supervisors, mentors, managers, and service providers ； Help them analyze together the mistakes in their work ； Help them improve their level of managing permits for hazardous operations ； Help them sort out the scientific methods for safety supervision and the key points of daily work. Safety officers, especially those at the grassroots level, must adhere to persuading people with reason, guiding them with laws, and influencing them with morality in the process of management ； Insist on thorough inspections and strict evaluations ； Insist on avoiding empty talk, focus on practical solutions, exert real effort, take concrete actions, and emphasize a service-oriented mindset ； During on-site inspections, it is essential to adhere to the “three searches”, namely “searching for gaps in measures, searching for unsafe factors, and searching for violations of regulations”. At the beginning of this year, Luntu Shares set safety production goals of “three zeros, one decline, and one increase”. The three zero targets are: zero serious personal injury accidents, zero serious equipment accidents, and zero serious fire and explosion accidents ； One indication of this decline is that the overall number of production safety accidents along with the associated economic losses decreased by 50% compared to 2005 ； One improvement is: through training, enhancing the entire staff’s ability to prevent accidents and respond to them promptly. To achieve the goals of safe production, the company has held a total of 85 safety training sessions and lectures from January to October this year, of which 49 were specifically aimed at the six types of employees mentioned above. Through targeted training and strict assessments for these six categories of employees, the safety awareness and operational skills of the company’s staff have improved significantly. Illegal activities have been effectively curbed, and the incidence of injury accidents caused by such violations has also **decreased. According to the statistics provided by the company’s safety management department, as of now, Luntu Shares’ safety production targets have all remained within the range set at the beginning of the year. The total number of personal injury accidents at the company from January to October 2006 was 54% lower than in the same period of 2005. The amount of loss incurred was reduced by 98%. Runtu Shares has fully demonstrated the importance of strengthening safety training for employees by enhancing such training for these six categories of personnel. Therefore, for private hazardous materials companies that rely heavily on migrant workers, we must firmly uphold our commitment to strengthening safety training, and we must carry out targeted safety education programs for these six types of workers. “We’re not afraid that you might not know it yesterday; what we’re worried about is that you won’t try to learn it today. As long as you’re willing to learn, we believe that the issues related to the safety of migrant workers in their work can definitely be effectively resolved