Sponsored by DEKRA Organizational Safety and Reliability

Although recent studies show that the overall effort to reduce injuries has progressed steadily over the past few decades, the trend for fatalities has plateaued, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This trend illustrates that whatever organizations have been doing to reduce injuries has not had the same effect on fatalities. As a result, organizations are starting to recognize that the causes of potentially life-threatening events are very different from the causes of other events with lower severity potential. Instead, there is a new shift emphasizing a focus on high-exposure events. In addition to a concentrated focus on the high-exposure events, there is a need to understand why people do what they do, especially during situations that may lead to serious injuries and fatalities.

The overall goal of this session is to help safety professionals:

• Recognize when they are being impacted by brain-centered hazards
• Recognize how brain-centered hazards can contribute to SIFs
• Understand how they can employ certain steps/processes to prevent brain-centered hazards from becoming a potential SIF

Speakers

Don Martin, MPH, CSP, Senior Vice President, DEKRA Organizational Safety and Reliability

Don is a safety industry veteran with more than four decades of experience. His area of expertise is the design and implementation of environmental, health and safety management systems; risk management programs; fatality prevention programs; and organizational culture change initiatives for companies worldwide.

One of his primary areas of expertise is the elimination of fatalities, injuries and catastrophic incidents. He has co-authored numerous published, peer-reviewed papers, including most recently, “Preventing Serious Injuries and Fatalities – Study Reveals Precursors and Paradigms,” “Does Zero Tolerance Really Work?” and “Determining SIF Potential.”

Rajni Walia, Ph.D., Vice President, DEKRA Organizational Safety and Reliability

Rajni is a senior leader within the Brain-Centric Reliability team at DEKRA OSR. This team provides leading-edge solutions incorporating the latest in applied behavior and neuroscience to help organizations achieve “right first time” results in safety performance and greater human performance reliability.

She is a highly sought-after thought leader with more than a decade of experience leading performance management, organizational assessment and development, and providing human error-reduction consultations. Her methods foster strong performance reliability through a systemic approach to designing and enhancing workplaces and processes, all deeply embedded in applied neuroscience.

Moderator

Barry Bottino, Associate Editor, Safety+Health magazine.

Barry covers worker safety for Safety+Health.