Tool Box Talks

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Gold on February 18, 2011 at 12:23pm

Hi Rick,

30 years is quite a track record! It may be difficult to cover the material in 5 minutes, here is one suggestion you can propose.   We did 15 minute tool box chats once a week at one of my earlier companies several years ago, and it worked quite well.  It was short enough to keep everyone's interest, but long enough to cover the basic points (we generally had one theme/subject for the month). 

I'm not familiar w/your situation and this may not work for the items that you cover.  One other thought is if they hold you to the 5 minutes, you may wish to create a (one page?) handout to pass out to everyone with your notes on it.  This would allow you to provide a summary of what you covered as well as some additional information. 

Permalink Reply by Kelley Winter on February 18, 2011 at 12:24pm

Good Morning Rick,

Our crews conduct a tailgate meeting when they are completing their risk assessment every morning, it takes about 5 mins. but I also conduct a health and safety meeting with each of our 5 divisions weekly, they take about 20 min. depending on the topic. Tailgate meetings in my mind are great for discussing the tasks/hazards/controls/production for the day, but are not long enough to provide discussions on safe work practices, incidents/near misses, training etc.. I would think that the Union Safety rep. would agree. If you want to talk about an H2S code of practice or something similar 5 mins. in the morning is just not long enough.

 

Hope this helps, have a great day!

Permalink Reply by Laurel Ferguson on February 18, 2011 at 1:20pm

Rick:

 

As long as you are maintaining the initial training and the annual trainings that OSHA requires, a 5 minute pre=shift toolbox talk is fine.  I have some great resources if you want to e-mail me off-line and I will happily share some of what I have with you.

 

Laurel Ferguson

Paychex Safety

laferguson@paychex.com

Permalink Reply by Craig Banning on February 18, 2011 at 2:25pm

We also conduct daily pre-shift tool box talks. We try to keep them to about 5 minutes. The idea here is to cover a topic and get everyone thinking about safety at the beginning of their shift. We still have the longer training sessions as most compliance type of training needs more time and, for us anyway, should be more formal.

I would look at this as a positive change. The math does not add up for it to only be to increse production. More time will be used in short daily talks than in a once a month hour long meeting. I'll let you do the math.

Permalink Reply by Rick Holm on February 20, 2011 at 10:30am

I don't agree. There is production inefficiencies during shift change. They are simply trying to insert toolbox into this time frame, there by freeing up productive time while being legally compliant. No concern what-so-ever on being effective.

Permalink Reply by Edward Dowd on February 18, 2011 at 4:49pm

 Sounds like managment is trying to  but production before employee safety.

I would agree with you that 5 or 10 minute daily talks on currant tasks being conducted would be great.

As for the hour talk weekly should be on a safety standard either OSHA or company policy. 

Permalink Reply by JISHAR on February 19, 2011 at 1:58am

 

5 minute tool box talk! YOU CAN AGAIN REDUCE TO 5 SECOND SO IT WILL HELP FOR MORE PRODUCTION AND REDUCTION IN LIFE OF WORK FORCE .

Dear friend, why you peoples reduce the TBT time to 5 minute? For improving the production! Do you think 5 minute will help the work force to understand the safety requirements and make them safety conscious? NO .This will effect the moral of work force they will take it only a drama just for legal satisfaction.

Think just about a fatal  accident consequences due to unsafe practices or negligence .It will affect the organization ,they will loss money in the form of compensation ,time loss, loss of reputation .loss of employee moral, maintenance  charge for damaged equipments ,PENALTIES ,prosecution etc.. hmmm {IF YOU HAVE A TRAILER FULL OF MONEY THIS IS SO SILLY MATTER}

SAFETY measures will never put any organization in loss but accidents  and mishaps DO!

So my suggestion is the old method ;not the new one which will favors only production not the safety of work force

 

 

Permalink Reply by Rick Holm on February 20, 2011 at 10:31am

Well said. Hope you don't object to me borrowing this when talking with the company

 

Permalink Reply by Rick Holm on February 20, 2011 at 10:39am

I thank you all for your input for it helps me to formulate how to best approach management.