Several techniques can help reduce stress and promote relaxation. Listening to soothing, calming music can lift your mood -- and make living with chronic pain more bearable.

Changes to the workplace represent both risks and opportunities for ergonomics. The risk of change is that without considering ergonomics, new challenges can be introduced. For example, a company became aware that product finish problems (scratches) were sometimes occurring but the source was unknown, so a Six Sigma green belt project was initiated.

Today’s workplaces look far different than they have in the past, taking on many shapes, sizes and settings. As a result, more workers from multiple employers are working side-by-side at the same locations, increasing the shared responsibility for worker safety among employers.

Within the next decade approximately 2.7 million “Baby Boomers” (b. 1946-1964) will retire, ensuring tens of thousands of skilled, well-paid positions will become available, all without a ready supply of American workers to fill them. Statistics paint an especially gloomy picture for the manufacturing sector, and a widening of the skills gap as young employees replace old.

Unfortunately, many organizations have a false perception that merely employing someone in a safety capacity is a risk control, as in, “Your Honor, we did our due diligence in safety… see, we hired a Safety Person (points to the ‘Safety Person’).”

This will be a series of short articles designed to provide a different perspective—a paradigm shift -- in terms of how most of you think about industrial safety. And how most of you think about accidental injury causation in general.

A multinational construction, property and infrastructure company based in Australia is using Moms to promote jobsite awareness and safe behavior at its worksites and offices. Lendlease, which is headquartered in Barangaroo, Sydney, assembled a team of real-life mothers of Lendlease employees to accompany their children to work and talk about the importance of safety for its “Moms for Safety” campaign, which has garnered international awards.

“Defenseless Moments” is the new book by Larry Wilson, founder of the SafeStart training program begun in 1998. Larry is Chief Visionary Officer of SafeStart and CEO of SafeStart International. “Defenseless Moments” covers hot safety topics.