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UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Overview

Hazard identification is a key part of any injury and illness prevention program within a business (especially small and medium sized companies). If hazards aren't identified, then they can't be mitigated properly. This tool is designed to help company leadership as well as workers practice more effectively identifying hazards.

Hazard Identification for Leadership

Although the upper management of a company may not be involved in day-to-day operations, management leadership (along with worker participation) is essential to ensuring that all hazards are identified and addressed. However, not all leaders are comfortable with the basics of hazard identification.

The OSHA Hazard Identification Training Tool (Play as Owner mode) is a game, aimed at entrepreneurs and managers, in which players practice identifying and prioritizing various workplace hazards. The game presents five generalized elements of a hazard identification program and a set of scenarios targeting different industries. Using hazard identification process fundamentals from the game, it is possible to apply safe work practices in any setting.

How To Play as Owner: Basics

Goal:

• Maximize your profit in 20 weeks.

Basics:

• Click & drag with the mouse to move around, viewing different areas within the factory.
• Click on equipment, areas and people to use your hazard identification tools to uncover hazards in the factory.
• Use the Hazard Log (tab at the bottom of the screen) to prioritize and mitigate the hazards you have found.
• Click End Week to convert your remaining hours to profit and move to the next week.
• You will receive updates in between each week detailing your activities.
• You will receive a summary of your performance after 20 weeks.

Hazard Identification for Workers

While workers are often experts in their own part of the business, they may not be comfortable with the basics of hazard identification in any area. Understanding a generic hazard identification process can be the first step on the way to a safer workplace.

The OSHA Hazard Identification Training Tool (Play as Worker mode) is a game, aimed at workers, in which players practice identifying various workplace hazards. The game presents three generalized elements of a hazard identification program. Using hazard identification process fundamentals from the game, it is possible to apply safe work practices in any setting.

How To Play as Worker: Basics

Goal:

• Find as many hazards as possible with only 10 actions.

Basics:

• Click on equipment, areas and people to use your hazard identification tool actions to uncover hazards in the factory.
• You will receive a summary of your performance after you have used 10 actions.

Tools

Hazard identification can be broken into five key elements, four categories of identification tools and the prioritization step. Use the four types of tools to continuously identify hazards in your workplace. Once you have a list of hazards, continually evaluate and prioritize that list based on severity and exposure, mitigating as many hazards as possible.

How to Play as Owner: Strategy

• It is important to divide and balance your time between the three things you can spend your hours on:
  • Hazard Identification
  • Hazard Mitigation
  • Making Profit
• Earn profit each turn based on your hours remaining ($800/hour).
  • Don't forget to leave some hours each week for profit.
• Money will be deducted from profit when hazards result in incidents.
  • You will lose some profit immediately (direct costs) and more over the following turns (indirect costs).
• Prevent incidents by mitigating hazards.
  • Remember that hazards can return (and will have to be identified again) when their mitigations expire. Note: Hazards in the game will reappear in order to model the on-going nature of hazard identification activities. The timing of hazard recurrence in-game may not accurately reflect the complex relationship of hazards and mitigations in the real world.
• Your workers are a good source of information about hazards.
  • They have a good understanding of what’s going on around them.
• Staying engaged with your workers can have additional benefits.
  • If you do a good job of constantly involving employees (and listening to them by mitigating hazards), they will take on the safety culture and contribute to the process.
• Minimal management involvement can have unintended consequences.
  • If you remain hands-off, the safety culture can wither, increasing the likelihood of incidents.
• If you don't mitigate any hazards, you will likely end up in debt.
• If you play well, you can end up with over $250,000. How much can you earn?

How to Play as Worker: Strategy

• It is important to balance your actions between the three types of hazard identification actions:
  • Collect Information
    • Reading manuals and safety data sheets
  • Inspect and Observe
    • Doing both visual inspections and process observations
  • Involve Workers
    • Talking to co-workers who know the ins-and-outs of each part of the process
• Balance your actions between the different pieces of equipment, workers and the area itself.
• You should be able to easily identify at least 10 hazards. How many can you find?

Cost Numbers

Potential Cost Savings and Incident Cost numbers used in this game are based on the information in OSHA's $afety Pays etool.

Direct injury costs include:

• Workers' compensation benefits paid for all compensable injuries and illnesses; and
• A workers' compensation claims-handling and administrative fee (applicable in certain jurisdictions).

Indirect injury costs include:

• Any wages paid to injured workers for absences not covered by workers' compensation;
• The wage costs related to time lost through work stoppage associated with the worker injury;
• The overtime costs necessitated by the injury;
• Administrative time spent by supervisors, safety personnel, and clerical workers after an injury;
• Training costs for a replacement worker;
• Lost productivity related to work rescheduling, new employee learning curves, and accommodation of injured employees; and
• Clean-up, repair, and replacement costs of damaged material, machinery, and property.

Additional real-world injury costs not used in this hazard identification product include:

• The costs of OSHA fines and any associated legal action;
• Third-party liability and legal costs;
• Worker pain and suffering; and
• Loss of goodwill from bad publicity.

Scenarios

OSHA's Hazard Identification Training Tool game contains multiple scenarios in which to practice using the hazard identification process outlined above. Below are descriptions and explanations for each currently available scenario. Additionally, OSHA resources specific to each scenario can be found below.

Manufacturing

"You are the head of Amalgamated Polyscientific Enterprises International, a company that manufactures parts for next-generation hovercrafts..."

The manufacturing scenario is intended to cover an abstracted generic manufacturing process similar to an auto-parts plant. Materials come in through the receiving dock, cycle through storage, shearing, stamping, and finishing before leaving through the shipping dock.

Below are some resources relevant specifically to the Manufacturing Scenario.

OSHA Resources

Construction

"You are a supervisor working for Four Twelve Construction, a general contractor. You are overseeing the construction of a convenience store..."

The construction scenario is intended to cover an abstracted generic construction process for small commercial buildings similar to a convenience store. Activities proceed from start to finish, and the environment is quite dynamic.

Below are some resources relevant specifically to the Construction Scenario.

OSHA Resources

Healthcare

"You are the head of Sacred Heart Hospital, a mid-sized ER operating in the middle of the suburbs. Your goal is to keep the ER's budget high and ensure that your workers remain safe from day to day..."

The healthcare scenario is intended to cover the general operations of an emergency department in a small to mid-size hospital. Patients come in through the Waiting Area or the Ambulance Entrance and are seen in Triage. They are then moved to Trauma, Treatment or Isolation Rooms.

Below are some resources relevant specifically to the Healthcare Scenario.

OSHA Resources