Identifying Hazard in the Workplace Using Visual Literacy

Visual inattentiveness hinders hazard identification. Experienced employees sometimes operate on auto-pilot, often repeating the same routines. In the process, they can miss hazards – both minor and major. Risk assessments and hazard hunts often suffer from being rushed, conducted with an element of complacency, or taken for granted. But all forms of hazard identification suffer from gaps in Visual Literacy. The unintentional “blinders” that can lead to a failure to see hazards. This same gap can also lead to poorly written hazard identification reports and ineffective communications, all of which can create misinterpretations and reduce your ability to work as a team to mitigate risks.

About 90% of the information that we take in as individuals is visual, so what we see really matters to how effective our hazard recognition efforts are.

White Papers

Identifying Hazards In The Workplace:
A New Approach That Starts With Seeing

Hazard identification is fundamental to any effort to improve safety performance. This paper offers insights into why we sometimes miss the hazards that are staring us straight in the face and how using Visual Literacy principles can improve our ability to identify them before they lead to an incident.

The Risk Management Maturation Process

Identifying hazards and assessing their risk potential brings needed clarity to what might harm our workers as well as damage property. We need a clear picture of our hazard inventory and risk profile so appropriate preventive and protective measures are developed and implemented before harmful, possibly serious events occur. This white paper describes how Visual Literacy can help organizations secure quality risk management.

What Makes Hazard Identification Really Work?

Intellectual knowledge of hazards combined with the capabilities described as Visual Literacy can help us make meaning of the environment around us. This paper outlines a four component process that can support our ability to be more successful in identifying and addressing hazards that exist in the workplace.

Program Module:
Hazard Identification

As part of our Visual Literacy program, COVE is pleased to announce the release of our Hazard Identification focused training module.

This module provides an opportunity for participants to use their enhanced visual literacy skills to identify the hazards in daily situations / routines, learn to see beyond what they "normally” see, and effectively communicate the critical information to leaders and team members.

* Modules are available under a license agreement and supports a train-the-trainer approach.

WEBINAR RECORDING:

A New Approach to Engage Employees and Mitigate Risk

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CUMMINS CASE STUDY

Cummins was looking for an opportunity to refresh and upgrade their hazard recognition capabilities. After learning more about COVE and Visual Literacy, Cummins decided to train workers in a specific section at one of their facilities. They focused on the principles of Visual Literacy to help identify additional hazards. Employees were able to identify a significant number of hazards that had been previously missed.