#  Execution

## Background

This chapter addresses program execution. Execution is that part of the
program where NOAA managers, employees and safety staff carry out the
day-to-day safety activities identified in the NOAA Safety Strategy and
funded through resource procedures.

Our discussion will cover four major aspects of safety program
execution: Injury Reporting; Operational Risk Management; Training; and
Outreach.

## Injury Reporting

### Current State

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) *Occupational Safety and Health
Manual* (March 2000), provides policies, procedures, and
responsibilities for incident reporting, investigation and record
keeping. Each employee is responsible for reporting accidents to their
supervisor. Each supervisor is responsible for submitting Commerce
Department form number 137 (CD-137), *Report of Accident/Incident*, to
the appropriate Administrative Support Center (ASC) safety
representative. The ASC representative completes the Occupational Safety
and Health Association (OSHA) form number 200, *Log of Federal
Occupational Injuries and Illnesses*.

The DOC *Occupational Safety and Health Manual* also provides reporting
procedures and responsibilities for completion and submission of
Department of Labor forms CA-1, *Federal Employee's Notice of Traumatic
Injury and Claim for Continuation of Pay/Compensation*, and CA-2,
*Federal Employee's Notice of Occupational Disease and Claim for
Compensation*. The employee completes their request for compensation,
and forwards the form to their supervisor. The supervisor completes
their section of the form within 10 working days, and then forwards the
form directly to the DOC contractor managing the Federal Employees
Compensation Act (FECA) program for DOC.

Approximately 500 NOAA operating locations report injuries, as follows:

-   Injuries with medical bills. Injured employees and their supervisors
    send CA-1 and CA-2 compensation claims to Contract Claims Services,
    Incorporated, a DOC contractor in Irving, TX, for claims processing:

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-   Approximately half of claims forms are currently being copied and
    sent to the Regional Safety Manager (RSM) to notify the RSM of the
    injury. RSM's use the claim forms to count injuries and calculate
    injury rates by line office.

-   DOC sends monthly copies of CA-1 and CA-2 claims forms to the ECHSSO
    Safety Division Chief, who faxes copies to the RSM's. The Safety
    Division Chief also faxes copies of claims forms for National Marine
    Fisheries Service (NMFS) employee injuries to the NMFS safety
    manager to honor a request from the NMFS safety manager.

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-   Supervisors of injured employees send CD Form 137 to RSM's to report
    accidents. CD 137s are required for injuries and for accidents and
    near-misses.

-   The Lost Time Injury (LTI) rate from the Safety Information
    Reporting System (SIRS) is used:

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-   RSM's enter OSHA 200 log type data into a SIRS spreadsheet, and
    e-mail an electronic copy monthly to the ECHSSO Safety Division
    Chief for collation into a master SIRS report for NOAA.

-   The ECHSSO Safety Division Chief sends the reports to the line
    office safety managers.

Line offices have identified injury and accident reporting
inconsistencies (e.g., what is reported and to whom it is reported, and
the manner and timeliness of reporting). The forms currently used to
report accidents and injuries serve different purposes for different
offices. DOC and NOAA safety offices report that this, as well as recent
changes in reporting submission guidance, may be the sources of the
inconsistency.

Some line offices have recognized and developed procedures to resolve
the reporting inconsistencies within their line office, including the
following:

-   The Marine Operations Center has drafted an internal instruction for
    routing shipboard and marine center accident reports. The Marine
    Operations Center is evaluating the possibility of using vendor
    software to automate the injury reporting process.

-   NOAA Fisheries has implemented a reporting process that augments the
    DOC reporting requirement. At Fisheries, each injured employee's
    supervisor sends a detailed e-mail regarding every mishap within 24
    hours of occurrence. The email notifies the Deputy Assistant
    Administrator for Operations and leadership throughout NOAA
    Fisheries. Upon notification of the mishap, all leadership levels
    within NOAA Fisheries take appropriate corrective action.

### Desired State

Supervisors report accidents rapidly throughout the supervisory chain of
command, with information available for review by the supporting line
office safety staff. This timely reporting provides responsible managers
information they need to take timely corrective action, and line office
safety staff to provide advice to their managers in accident
investigations and hazard abatement options. Accident information is
available to all supervisory levels faster than the compensation claim
information, and meets time requirements of 29 CFR 1960 for notifying
OSHA of fatalities and hospitalizations within 8 hours. Regional Safety
Managers have access to accident information for them to fulfill their
roles in providing technical support to NOAA locations in their
geographic region.

#### Defense Logistics Agency

Defense Logistics Agency has developed and implemented their Safety and
Health Information Reporting System (SHIRS), which has been in operation
for several years. SHIRS is a robust database designed to report and
monitor mishaps and their associated costs throughout DLA. Safety staff
record in SHIRS those accidents reported to them by supervisors. As a
check on supervisor accident reports, SHIRS automatically receives
injury compensation claim data from the DoD Civilian Personnel
Management System (CPMS)/Department of Labor Workers Compensation
Office, and matches injury claims against the accident reports. Injury
claims without an accident report are referred to the safety manager and
workplace supervisor for investigation and reporting in SHIRS. SHIRS
currently operates using a client-server software system. A fully
web-enabled version is being considered.

#### National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASA has a mature injury reporting process that has been in place for
many years. Currently, this automated process is being modified to a
web-based platform. Safety and health professionals crosscheck the
mishaps reported in this in-house Incident Reporting Information System
(IRIS) with activity reported in the workers compensation claims
process.

#### National Institute of Science and Technology 

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), as an agency
in the Department of Commerce (DOC) with NOAA, uses DOC procedures for
injury compensation claims. DOC has hired a contractor to manage all
workers compensation claims from all DOC organizations, including those
originating at NIST and NOAA. DOC receives the claims directly from the
contractor claims processor, and relies on these claims to monitor DOC
accident rates. Unfortunately, this claims process has not generated
accurate information for NIST or for NOAA. The NIST Occupational Health
and Safety Directorate (OHSD) Director has discovered problems ranging
from underreporting of accidents to claims assigned to the wrong
organization. The NIST OHSD Director is instituting a major initiative
to increase reporting and improve understanding of the sources of
accidents.

NIST is asking injured employees to report first to the NIST Health Unit
before seeking medical care from their personal health care provider.
The Health Unit has an on-site emergency medical technician and
ambulance for transporting employees to a local hospital for more
extensive care when needed. When employees report to the Health Unit,
they fill out a workers compensation claim form and a CD-137. The Health
Unit sends a copy of the CD-137 to the injured employee's supervisor and
to the Safety Office to collect additional information on the accident.
For employees not using the Health Unit, NIST also provides a copy of
the workers compensation claim forms and CD-137 on the NIST intranet web
site. As a quality control check, the Safety Office reviews all workers
compensation claims provided by DOC to make sure the Safety Office has
accident reports for all injuries. OHSD summarizes the accident data and
sends the Operating Unit Directors monthly reports of injuries.

The OHSD Director feels that the new process with employees reporting to
the Health Unit first is improving injury reporting. Since instituting
the new procedures, the NIST accident rate increased in Fiscal Year (FY)
2003. The OHSD Director is expecting the accident rates to decrease in
FY 2004 as the improved accident reporting provides information to
prevent accidents.

In addition to this traditional accident tracking and analysis by OHSD,
the supervisory chain performs direct verbal notification of accidents
from the supervisor to the line manager to the Operating Unit Director
and to the NIST Director and Public Relations Office.

### Recommendations

-   Issue policy requiring employees and supervisors report accidents
    within eight working hours to the management level responsible for
    performing accident investigations.

-   Issue accident investigation policy identifying levels and oversight
    for accident review.

-   Establish trained mishap investigation teams.

-   Conduct NEC reviews of serious mishaps (i.e., a mishap resulting in
    a fatality, three or more hospitalizations, permanent disability,
    five or more lost work days, or high potential for multiple
    injuries).

-   NOAA develop or purchase a web-based accident reporting system to
    support accident reporting to line managers and supporting safety
    staff.

## Operational Risk Management

### Current State

Operational risk management (ORM) is the process whereby line managers
manage safety risks for their operations using the following steps:

-   Identify safety hazards in work operations and locations.

-   Assess risk of accidents from these hazards.

-   Identify potential corrective actions, including cost of
    implementing expected effectiveness and controlling risk and the
    risk remaining after implementation.

-   Select corrective actions to be implemented, and the accompanying
    residual risk, at the appropriate level of authority.

-   Implement corrective actions.

-   Evaluate corrective actions for their effectiveness.

There is evidence of ORM principles being applied at multiple locations
within NOAA. However, application of ORM is inconsistent. NOAA Marine
and Aviation Operations (NMAO), National Weather Service (NWS) and
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have an existing approach
toward implementing ORM principles within their operations and tasks.
Other line offices rely on job hazard analyses (JHAs) as a method to
identify hazards. JHAs are also applied inconsistently throughout NOAA.

### Desired State

NOAA institutionalizes the principles of Operational Risk Management
(ORM) throughout the organization. ORM will be a decision making tool
used by people at all levels to increase operational effectiveness by
anticipating hazards and reducing the potential for loss, thereby
increasing the probability of a successful operation or task. The
benefits of applying the ORM process will reduce mishaps, lower injury
and property damage costs, provide for effective use of resources, and
improve training realism and effectiveness.

#### Navy and Marine Corps Operational Risk Management

Military commanders have a fundamental responsibility to safeguard
highly valued personnel and material resources, and to accept only the
minimal level of risk necessary to accomplish an assigned mission.
Historically, a greater percentage of losses during combat operations
was caused by mishaps than by enemy fire.

Since 1991, ORM, applied both in day-to-day operations and during crisis
periods, has produced dramatic results in reducing these losses. All
naval missions, as well as daily routines, involve risk. Every
operation, both on- and off-duty, requires some degree of decision
making that includes risk assessment and risk management. The naval
vision is to develop an environment where every leader, sailor, marine
and civilian is trained and motivated to personally manage risk in
everything they do, thereby completing all operations with minimum risk.

ORM is a decision making process that enhances operational capability.
ORM is a method for identifying hazards, assessing risks and
implementing controls to reduce the risk associated with any operation.
Implementation of ORM in the Department of the Navy will be accomplished
as follows:

-   ORM will be included in the orientation and training of all military
    personnel. The level of training will be commensurate with rank,
    experience, and leadership position.

-   ORM lessons learned will be submitted to the Chief of Naval
    Operations and/or Commandant of the Marine Corps for inclusion in
    ORM databases.

-   The ORM process will be integrated into all levels of a command.

The Navy and Marine Corps make it clear that the leader directly
responsible for the mission makes ORM decisions. Prudence, experience,
judgment, intuition and situational awareness are critical elements in
making effective risk management decisions. When the leader responsible
for executing the mission determines that the risk associated with that
mission cannot be controlled at their level, or goes beyond the
commander's stated intent, they shall elevate the decision through their
chain of command.

The ORM concept

-   is a decision making tool used by people at all levels to increase
    operational effectiveness by anticipating hazards and reducing the
    potential for loss, thereby increasing the probability of a
    successful mission;

-   increases the ability to make informed decisions by providing the
    best baseline of knowledge and experience available; and

-   minimizes risks to acceptable levels, commensurate with mission
    accomplishment. The amount of risk taken varies, depending on the
    mission, but the process is the same. Applying the ORM process
    reduces mishaps, lowers costs, and results in a more efficient use
    of resources.

ORM incorporates the following four principles:

-   Accept risk when benefits outweigh the cost.

-   Accept no unnecessary risk.

-   Anticipate and manage risk by planning.

-   Make risk decisions at the right level.

### Recommendations

Establish an ORM Process Improvement Team

Develop an ORM chapter as part of the NOAA Safety Manual, which includes
roles and responsibilities and an overall implementation plan.

Develop curricula and incorporate ORM policy and instruction in each
level of leadership training (senior-management, mid-level management,
first-line supervisors and employee levels).

Perform an ORM policy gap analysis of all written NOAA and line office
policies and procedures.

## Training

### Current State

#### Department of Commerce Requirements

Department of Commerce Safety Manual, Chapter 6, contains NOAA safety
training policy. Table 6-1 of that Manual provides the recommended
minimum safety training for job categories (top management, supervisory,
non-supervisory, employee representatives, collateral duty
representatives, and safety professionals).

DOC has a strong, comprehensive training policy. It specifically states
"top management personnel shall receive OSH \[occupational safety and
health\] training to enable them to actively and effectively support OSH
programs in their specific areas of responsibility." In addition to the
coverage of appropriate statutes, regulations, and applicable DOC OSH
standards, management level training shall include the following:

1.  An in-depth examination of management's responsibilities that
    includes training topics covering analysis of compliance procedures,
    the study of current accident and injury reporting procedures, and a
    thorough understanding of investigation/inspection procedures;

2.  A review of DOC policy on all relevant aspects of the DOC OSH
    program at all levels throughout the Department; and

3.  A comprehensive examination and analysis of the operating unit
    program objectives and goals.

The training goal for managers and supervisors is to enable them to
recognize unsafe/unhealthful working conditions and practices in the
workplace. Training goals also includes developing skills necessary to
manage the OSH program at the work unit level, developing management
skills training to motivate subordinates, and training that results in
integration of occupational safety with job training. Finally, the
supervisor training policy covers training for newly appointed
supervisors.

Specific safety training for non-supervisory personnel includes a
requirement for specialized job safety and health training directed to
the individual's work site with input and direction from the workplace
supervisor. For new employees, the manual lists required training, as
follows:

1.  Individual responsibility for safety and health;

2.  Employee reporting procedures for hazardous operations/conditions;

3.  Awareness of hazards common to the individual's work site, trade,
    occupation or tasks; and

4.  Departmental and local policy on occupational safety and health.

The DOC Safety Manual also provides detailed training requirements for
Safety and Health Specialists and Collateral Duty Personnel.

#### NOAA-Wide Training

Currently, NOAA does not have a formal training program that follows the
DOC training policy and training requirements. NOAA does not appear to
have a standard way of certifying, recording, and tracking training that
has been conducted and completed. While the NOAA ECS Training Team
establishes budget priorities for training, the Training Team did not
meet in FY2003 because there was no ECS budget for training. NOAA NFA is
currently providing comprehensive safety training to supervisors on
their roles and responsibilities through either DuPont training (funded
by the line offices) or NOAA Stop Taking Avoidable Risks (STAR) (funded
by NFA). These programs include safety behavior, injury reporting, and
all other supervisor functions. NOAA NFA has initiated electronic safety
training for all employees. These programs have been accepted and well
supported.

#### Line Office Training

Each line office has implemented a safety training program, but the
degree of implementation varies between line offices. The line office
training efforts are described in detail in the line office reports
provided as appendices to this report.

NMAO provides its employees with additional job-related safety training.
For example, all NOAA Corps Officers receive pre-assignment training
that prepares them for NOAA ship and aircraft positions, NOAA shipboard
personnel receive training based on established International Convention
on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers
(STCW) requirements, and NOAA divers receive extensive training. Fleet
inspectors attend U.S. Coast Guard training in ship inspection and
shipboard safety standards. Aircraft maintenance personnel are trained
to meet FAA and related requirements. Dive program and small boat
program managers are fully trained and conversant in their areas of
expertise.

NWS and NMAO each have electronic training tracking systems. NMAO is
investigating and implementing improvements in certification, record
keeping, and tracking of personnel being trained. A manual record
keeping system is currently in place at the Marine Operations Center
(MOC) until an automated system can be implemented to meet Integrated
Safety Management (ISM) requirements.

#### Professional Staff Training

NOAA has not established standard training requirements for its safety
professionals. Some, but not all, of the collateral duty safety
representatives have the 40-hour OSHA 600 Collateral Duty Safety
training course.

### Desired State

Every job has been evaluated using a job hazard analysis to identify
changes in the process and employee training requirements for unabated
hazards. Employees have received the training per the requirements. The
safety professionals assist managers, supervisors and employees in
completing the Job Hazard Analyses. Managers and supervisors know and
understand the hazards of each task. Managers, supervisors, and
employees receive web-based safety training (i.e., e-learning).

There is a training tracking system in place. Training information is
electronically recorded into a database. The database reminds managers,
supervisors, and employees about periodic training requirements.

Managers/supervisors/employees evaluate the adequacy of their training.
A training team uses these evaluations to improve each training course.

All new employees receive safety orientation training. All new
collateral duty safety representatives have received the OSHA 600
collateral duty safety class.

Safety professionals obtain training and maintain their professional
accreditation (i.e. CSP, CIH, PE). Safety professionals receive at least
one 40 hour advanced course and attend one safety conference per year.

#### National Institute of Science and Technology 

Training---All employees and associates receive training in the skills
required to understand and comply with all safety policies and
requirements applicable to their daily activities.

-   NIST employees and associates (including students) receive training
    in NIST safety policies, practices, and procedures (routine and
    emergency), with additional training for new employees and
    associates.

-   NIST Safety Council recommends a suite of suitable training
    materials appropriate for different work environments.

-   NIST ensures that all students and associates receive appropriate
    supervision in safety procedures.

-   NIST developed incident investigation procedures and trains
    supervisors in their use.

The NIST Safety Office recognizes the difficulty of providing new
employees training in safe work procedures. They currently provide a
5-minute introduction to safety during new employee training and provide
supervisors with a standard form to train new employees.

Additionally, NIST provides task-specific safety training to employees,
and maintain a matrix of training completed for each employee. The
Safety Office is considering using Training and Education in the 21st
Century, Inc., to provide employees task specific safety training.

OHSD has plans to complete accident investigation training for managers
in the supervisory chain from Operating Unit Directors to Division
Chiefs. After 2004, the Safety Office plans to train supervisors
subordinate to Division Chiefs. The Chair of the Safety Council
introduces each accident investigation training class to demonstrate
accident investigations are a management responsibility, not a safety
staff task.

NIST senior management attended the 2-day DuPont Management Leadership
Course. The DuPont Safety Director provided the introductory
presentation. Attendees included the NIST Director, Operating Unit
directors and deputy directors, and Division chiefs (typically GS-15
level). NIST managers took three field trips to the DuPont Research
Facility and met with DuPont Senior Management. These trips gave NIST
managers insight into how safety is integrated into the daily operations
for a major research operation similar to NIST. After the field trips,
NIST managers identified best practices NIST needed to follow to instill
a safety culture into NIST operations. DuPont benchmarked the Chemical
Science & Technology Laboratory and the Electronics and Electrical
Engineering Laboratory and found the need to increase the safety culture
in these operations.

#### National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

NASA provides an exhaustive array of safety training. It includes
instructor-based training at central locations, instructor visits to
Centers, and on-line courses at its "Site for Online Learning And
Resources"(SOLAR) at
https://solar.msfc.nasa.gov:443/solar/delivery/public/html/newindex.htm.

#### U.S. Postal Service

USPS established a Safety Training Working Group in FY00 to evaluate the
current state of safety training and to recommend a course of action to
solve USPS training issues. One result was to focus the workgroup's
efforts on the most critical OSHA programs, which they achieved by
developing a training matrix.

The training matrix identified critical OSHA programs and corresponding
OSHA/USPS training requirements. The matrix breaks training requirements
into three groups: Customer Services; Vehicle Maintenance Facilities;
and Plants, Bulk Mail Centers and Air Mail Centers. Designated
assignments, job classifications and employee potential for exposure
then serve to filter specific training needs.

If the safety training is not available from USPS, the matrix contains
guidelines to develop local training or to evaluate vendor training that
meets the OSHA required elements. USPS distributed the matrices and
advised the USPS Area Directors to develop a plan for identifying and
addressing gaps in OSHA and postal required training.

USPS identified the benefits of this approach to include: management
commitment to safety training; completing required training; reducing
injuries and illnesses; reducing training costs; and increasing the use
of existing training resources.

As the next step, the USPS Safety Training Working Group developed
"InfoPaks" for all Facility Safety Coordinator (their collateral duty
safety personnel) and made them available on the USPS Intranet. Of
significance is the fact that the American Society for Training and
Development recognized the USPS with an "Excellence in Practice"
citation for the Facility Safety Coordinator Training Course, as
follows: "This self-study course targets 35,000 postal managers who are
assigned collateral safety duties. The product is available in both
web-based and hard copy formats. ASTD is the world's premiere
professional association in the field of workplace learning and
performance."

Currently, USPS is evaluating a prototype "Safety and Health Training
Decision Tree (SOHDT)" web based application that will enable managers
and supervisors to plan employee safety training requirements based on
their assigned tasks. Managers and supervisors will use the SOHDT to
identify employees that require training and select courses to meet OSHA
and Postal Service safety and health training requirements.

Each USPS Area/District/Plant safety office will answer a series of
initial profile questions. By answering the profile questions,
experienced safety professionals identify basic safety and occupational
health (SOH) training requirements for each USPS plant, facility or
installation. For example, the first profile covers asbestos. The first
profile question is "Does this facility have asbestos?" A safety
specialist answers the asbestos profile question. If the answer is
'Yes,' asbestos training is included on the list of training subjects
that managers and supervisors at that facility must address. If the
answer to the profile question is 'No,' asbestos is eliminated from the
SOH training requirements at that facility.

Upon completion of the profile questions, each identified manager and
supervisor with web access can view his/her facility-specific list of
SOH training requirements.

Accessing the list leads each manager/supervisor through a sequence of
queries and data entry forms, for each of the applicable,
facility-specific, OSHA training subjects. The queries and data entry
forms enable managers and supervisors to develop and update an annual
SOH training plan for each of his/her employees.

The annual training plan will roll up to various levels (e.g., work
unit, department, plant/facility, district and area) for review,
analysis and approval. Managers/supervisors execute their training plan,
monitor completion rates, and change or modify the training plan, as
necessary, throughout the year.

During the fiscal year, HQ USPS plans to visit each Area Office to
review completion of objectives and training targets and reports. At the
end of the year, HQ USPS and the Areas/District SOH Offices review
annual training plans for completion of objectives, and compare these
objectives against accident rates and other outcome measures to identify
potential successes in affecting accident rates. HQ USPS and the
Areas/District SOH Offices use the outcomes to update the SOHDT, the
USPS Safety and Health Program Evaluation Guide and facility action
plans and to choose objectives and metrics for the coming fiscal year.

### Recommendations

-   Develop and publish safety training policy and procedures for all
    employees in the NOAA Safety Manual.

-   Establish training policy for Safety professionals to attend annual
    training to maintain their technical skills and certifications (i.e.
    CSP, PE, CIH).

-   Implement a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) program to evaluate each job
    and identify job-specific training needs and hazards

-   Develop an automated training tracking system for NOAA-wide
    application, including a review of NWS, NMAO, and commercial
    training tracking systems.

-   Develop and Implement a new employee safety orientation training and
    checklist for supervisors to use for new employees or when they
    change positions.

-   Analyze training options, including the course provider, course
    names and content, cost, and the effectiveness of the training.

-   Advertise the availability of (and provide access to) online safety
    training on the NOAA and line office homepages.

-   Evaluate training; recommend training programs; and purchase
    training products and training courses for evaluation and
    reporting).

-   Host periodic safety workshops for the NOAA safety staff.

-   Host Annual safety conference for the NOAA safety community.

-   Implement ergonomics awareness training

-   Provide STCW training for shipboard employees to meet new and
    current federal and international requirements.

## Industrial Hygiene and Medical Surveillance

### Current State

NOAA conducts few industrial hygiene surveys to assure both management
and employees that unhealthful exposures are not occurring in the work
environment. The ability to conduct industrial hygiene surveys is
limited by the insufficient number of industrial hygiene personnel,
sampling equipment, travel funds and the costs of laboratory analysis.

A medical surveillance program is a process that follows the medical
condition of employees, over a period of time, who have been exposed to
significant on-the-job health hazards. It is also required for employees
who are required to wear respiratory protection or hearing protection.
NOAA does not have a consistent medical surveillance program across all
line offices to monitor health effects in exposed employees. As a
notable exception, NMAO provides medical surveillance supported by
extensive written protocols.

### Desired State

NOAA conducts industrial hygiene surveys consistent with "Best in Class"
criteria. Surveys are completed annually for high risk operations (e.g.,
research facilities, laboratories), biannually for medium risk
operations, and as needed for low risk operations.

NOAA performs targeted medical surveillance for employees to monitor for
the health effects of workplace exposures, and to ensure they are
qualified to perform assigned duties (e.g., wearing respirators,
performing fire fighting).

### Recommendations

-   Develop an inventory of required industrial hygiene surveys by
    location and frequency

-   Conduct Industrial Hygiene surveys of work spaces identified by the
    line office safety managers

-   Perform medical surveillance as determined by the industrial hygiene
    surveys.

## Outreach

### Current State

#### Professional Development

The DOC Manual, Chapter 4.02, states clear support for safety staff
participation in the Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and
Health (FACOSH) and Field Federal Safety and Health Councils sponsored
by OSHA. Some of the NOAA safety staff participate in these and other
professional organizations.

NOAA schedules environment and safety meetings and conferences to
provide forums for NOAA Environmental Compliance and Safety (ECS)
professionals the opportunity to exchange information and plan
activities. One of these forums is the NOAA annual ECS Conference.
Unfortunately, due to funding constraints in FY03, NOAA cancelled this
conference.

#### Employee Information

The Department of Commerce and NOAA have safety websites. However, the
information posted on the websites requires more consistency. For
example, the website could provide consistent reporting to management
and employees of monthly, quarterly, and annual injury and illness rates
for NOAA and each line office.

Among the line offices, NMAO continues to evaluate other means to
improve prevention and outreach. NMAO periodically publishes and
distributes a safety newsletter to all NMAO employees. The newsletter
serves as a reminder to keep safety foremost in employees' minds and
actions and provides a means to disseminate safety information on topics
pertinent to ship and aircraft operations. It provides a means to report
on the status of safety-related projects, accident statistics, and other
areas of concern.

NWS conducts monthly conference calls with Regional and Operating Unit
Environmental/Safety Coordinators to discuss various issues related to
implementation of the safety program. The NWS Safety Officer
communicates with Environmental/Safety Coordinators via e-mails on a
daily basis. Other examples of NWS outreach include,

-   NWS designed a safety awareness poster that is in stock at the
    National Logistics Support Center.

-   NWS has an environmental/safety web page that has NWS safety and
    health policy, NWS safety manual, legal memoranda, and NOAA
    information available for downloading.

NOAA outreach efforts also include Regional Safety Managers (RSM) who
conduct inspections and evaluations, and provide training and follow up
support, as resources permit. The following examples offer opportunities
to improve RSM outreach efforts.

-   RSM's receive requests for support and funding directly from the
    line offices. In those instances, if the line office does not have
    funding, the RSM safety advisory support is further limited.

-   Field activity visits indicate that many field facilities do not
    post the OSHA poster and very few offices post additional safety
    posters in their workplace. Furthermore, was common to find that
    employees did not know their safety representatives.

Currently, the DOC Safety Manual does not address safety
awards/recognition. NOAA's safety awards and recognition program is
beginning.

### Desired State

NOAA's outreach efforts result in the following:

-   Managers and employees know whom they can contact for assistance and
    information.

-   Managers and employees feel that they play a vital role in NOAA's
    Safety Program.

-   Employees are aware of the safety status of their work environment
    and the steps that are being taken to ensure safe conditions.

-   A fully developed NOAA safety awards and recognition program exists.

-   Line offices and multi-agency facilities work together in a
    coordinated fashion.

-   Data analysis becomes the launching pad for numerous safety
    initiatives.

-   Facility employees interact with the communities surrounding them
    and work with local safety groups/agencies.

-   NOAA urges safety professionals and safety officials to attend
    safety conferences.

-   NOAA uses websites to serve as on-line safety offices, which provide
    substantial safety related content.

#### NASA

NASA Headquarters and the Centers extensively use websites to serve as
virtual on-line safety offices with substantial safety related content.
NASA is currently putting in a new on-line system for incident reporting
and corrective actions.

#### NIST

The NIST intranet main page provides a direct link to a safety web page
maintained by OHSD. OHSD posts safety messages, training materials, and
a summary of recordable injuries for all NIST employees to view.

The NIST intranet main page provides a direct link to a "Staff Forum"
where NIST employees can provide feedback, suggestions, or other
comments on NIST operations, including reporting hazards and improving
safety. Employees can submit comments anonymously or identify themselves
for direct follow-up. The NIST "Program Office" is the executive-level
office that monitors employee submissions and refers comments to staff
offices to provide responses. The Program Office sends employee comments
about safety, including reported safety hazards, to OHSD for review and
response. The Program Office publishes staff office responses on the web
site for the viewing of all employees.

NIST communicates their safety vision and expectations clearly and
succinctly: "Safety will be a visible part of all activities at NIST.
All persons are expected to report all incidents, accidents, and unsafe
conditions. NIST management will communicate all accidents, near misses,
and root causes to everyone at NIST."

NIST also makes it clear that they recognize and reward safe behavior,
while noting "Unsafe behavior will be corrected promptly." The NIST
Administrative Manual is undergoing a revision that will increase
consequences for unsafe conduct and behavior.

### Recommendations

Enhance the ECS website as a one-stop location for employee safety
information. Publicize its existence.

Create an electronic safety suggestion box on the web.

Establish safety councils/committees at all facilities or have
membership on an established council/committee where NOAA is not the
responsible official.

Review and update the NOAA safety awards/recognition program and
investigate other safety awards offered by outside agencies.

Host NOAA safety days for NOAA employees

Encourage NOAA Safety professionals to participate on safety committees
and workgroups outside NOAA

Publish a NOAA Environmental, Health, Safety & Emergency Preparedness
Report