Job Hazard Analysis Of Osh Kosh

Introduction:
A job hazard analysis (JHA) is defined as, “a technique to identify the dangers of specific tasks in order to reduce the risk of injury to workers” according to Safety Works Maine Department of Labor. Job hazard analyses can also be used to find out the details of accidents and to train workers on how to do their jobs correctly. In order for someone to know how to conduct a job hazard analysis, the person must first know what a hazard actually is. A hazard is, “any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone under certain conditions at work” (Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, 1). Not all hazards are necessarily life threatening, but any hazard can cause injury nonetheless.
This project will portray a JHA on a workplace of my choosing. The work site that was analyzed was Osh Kosh B’gosh. Osh Kosh is a store that is exposed to many hazards that the employees are unaware of and have to work with every day. This project will help to identify and come up with a correction plan for all of the hazards that are being faced in the store. Be advised that not all hazards that are listed are life threatening but as aforementioned, any hazard runs the risk of causing injury.
About the Job:
Osh Kosh B’gosh is a retail store that sells children’s clothing from sizes 3m-12 years of age.
The store is located in Gonzales Tanger Outlets and is positioned betwixt Sunglass Hut and New York and Company. Osh Kosh is the store that I currently work at and was established in 1895 wherein the original store sold men’s overalls only. It was not until about twenty years ago when the Carter’s franchise bought out the Osh Kosh company and switched them from selling the overalls for men to a variety of children’s clothing. Osh Kosh B’gosh is a great place to investigate and conduct a JHA for because it is an environment that lacks safety training and none of the employees knows what kind of risks they are facing. I am constantly reminding fellow employees of the dangers of certain tasks that they are trying to accomplish with the little safety tools they have to get it
done.
Identifying the Hazards:
There are quite a few hazards that are in Osh Kosh B’gosh that will be brought to light and hopefully there will be some immense amounts of changes in the store. The most common hazard in the store is ladders. The employees are at risk every time they climb a ladder because they do so very carelessly and inappropriately. When climbing on the tallest ladder the store has, which is approximately twelve feet in length, the employees tend not to use the three-point climbing technique. The employee gets on the ladder and does not use their hands until they reach the middle of the ladder, which at that time is six feet above ground level. According to the BLM manual, the free fall distance shall not exceed 6 feet (Tower Climbing and Fall Protection Program, 10). This means that after 6 feet there should be fall protection equipment being used and they are not even using their hands yet. Another ladder hazard is the workers get to the top part of the ladder and stand on the top of it. This leaves the employee with twelve feet of fall distance straight down with no protection or anything to catch them. There have been near misses when an employee has stumbled at the top of the ladder and almost fell off. Another large hazard that the store experiences are sharp corners of shelves and tables. The shelves and tables are not rounded as they should be and can lead to serious injuries. The shelves and tables hold approximately 88% of the stores overall merchandise so therefore are scattered about the store. The average shelf height in the workplace is 4.5 feet from ground level and it is a children’s store, so many people that come into the store are children no more than 3-4 feet tall. Having said this, children of that height could easily hit their heads on one of the corners and split it open to where the injury becomes beyond first aid. There have only been minor incidents with the corners of the tables and shelves and they happened between employees rather than customers. The injuries that the workers received were minor scratches and a few bruises. Another main hazard that the Osh Kosh retail store experiences is the use and misuse of box cutters. The box cutters that the company uses have a metal casing around the razor blade and the blade can emerge and retract back into the casing. The employees use the box cutters and will tend to leave them where the blade is exposed. This becomes a hazard when someone else goes to look for the cutter or to pick it up because the worker could be cut. There was an incident where an employee left the box cutter on top of a stack of boxes and when another employee went to move the boxes, the cutter fell and nearly cut the workers arm. Sara Wesche says in her article, Selling Safety: Safe Work Practices for Retail, that “Awareness and communication are key to preventing incidents and injuries” (Wesche, 1). The final main hazard that Osh Kosh has is slippery floors. Some of the crewmembers at the store mop the sales floor and do not place warning signs on the floor afterward. In addition, the mopping employees do not inform other employees that the floor is wet which can cause slipping hazards. Workers should always communicate with one another whenever they see something hazardous are could lead to a hazard or injury. The employee who placed the box cutter on top of the stack of boxes should have known to either put the cutter elsewhere or let someone know the cutter is in that place.
Controls for Hazards: For all the stores hazards, the controls for them are fairly simple and easy to achieve. Controlling ladder hazards should be the first step in improving the company’s overall employee health. To control these hazards, the staff needs to be properly trained on how to ascend and descend from the ladders. The training should be completed as soon as possible, because the ladders are used every day in the store and the person training the employees needs to be someone who knows the proper climbing techniques. Another control comes from Lu Yuan’s power point, Construction of Facilities, which states, “Do not reach too far from a ladder” (Slide 21). Not reaching far from the ladder eliminates one possibility of falling from it. Implementing fall protection for the employees would be a little harder to do considering that the roof is 2.5 times as high as the ladder so there is no way to get a harness hooked up to anything. There is also no way to get a safety net under the ladder so the only viable practice there could be is to train the employees and make sure they know the dangers of standing on the top of the ladder. Another control for ladders is to have someone hold the ladder from the bottom to eliminate any shakiness as the other employee climbs up and down the ladder. The buddy system is also effective because it gives the climbing employee a sense of comfort knowing that a fellow worker is watching them and making sure they are safe. To control the second listed hazard is simple but it can become time consuming and costly. In order to eliminate the sharp edged corners of the tables and shelves requires either sanding or wearing away the edge to give it a rounded finish or the company would have to redistribute all new shelves and tables with rounded edges. The redistribution of shelves and tables is the part that could become costly because the tables in the store now, alone, cost around eight hundred dollars. The store has eight tables, all with sharp edges, that would need to be replaced, which in turn would sum up to $6,400. Sanding and refining the edges of the shelves and tables would be both time consuming and costly, but if there becomes an increasing number of table or shelf incidents then the company would have implement one of the two solutions. In the book, Safety and Health for Engineers, Roger L. Brauer states in chapter , “A slip is the sliding of one or both feet on a surface, and if it is unexpected, it can lead to a fall” (140). Brauer is stating that communication is the main control for slipping hazards. When an employee does not inform anyone of a wet floor with either verbal warnings or wet floor signs, the employee is unaware of the danger and can slip due to unexpectedness. Another control for wet floors is housekeeping. The sales floor must stay clear of materials other than the floor itself. Examples of these foreign materials are water, drink, mud and ice. Warning signs need to be placed on the floor to make people conscious of the slipping hazard. To control the box cutter hazard one needs to make sure that all employees are aware of the hazard that can occur from an exposed blade. Guards cannot be place on these personal blades so the only other control for exposed blades is to make sure that all employees conceal the blades after each use and make it a habitual ritual.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, Osh Kosh B’gosh has many hazards that need to be brought to attention.
The JHA is important to the company because it makes everyone aware of what is happening in the store. The employees are unconscious of all the hazards that are around them and put themselves in danger every time they go to work. When all of the hazards are brought to light then the store will be a much safer place. The ladder safety is a main concern because it is the most deadly hazard that needs to be controlled above all else. The second hazard that needs attention before the others is the sharp edges on the tables and shelves. If the corners are rounded, it will diminish a good bit of injuries and people will not have to avoid them as much while they are shopping. The next hazard that should be controlled is the lack of communication and warnings about the slippery floors. Whenever this hazard is controlled it will eliminate a lot of customers’ worry and slipping incidents. The reason the box cutter incident should be controlled last is that everything else is either more dangerous or puts both customers and employees in danger. The blades put only the employees in danger because the cutters remain in the stock room where customers are not
allowed.