Category Archives: Health and Wellness

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Mitigating Construction Risks with Advanced Training Techniques

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Construction is consistently ranked as one of the riskiest jobs in the United States. Fluid workforces, high-risk scenarios and a communication disconnect between home office and front-line workers all result in the very real possibility of serious injury or even death.

One of the major challenges in the construction industry is getting information and training to the front-line workers who face the most risk, but are often the least informed. Company emails and company-issued phones go as far as the foremen but do not always make it down to the crew themselves. Training is not always readily available or is more compliance-based than it is practical for the day’s work. This creates major risks for front-line workers, contractors, insurers and anyone involved with ensuring construction projects are safely and accurately completed. As a result, the construction industry is increasingly turning to new virtual and mobile technology tools. In an effort to improve its communication and training practices and provide critical information to its workers.

Visualizing High-Risk Scenarios

New, interactive modules are allowing safety teams to offer more effective and engaging job-site training in the form of videos, quizzes, virtual reality and 3D simulators. Exposure-based training platforms can also provide a “hands-on” experience, giving front-line workers the opportunity to encounter different situations while in a safe environment.

For example, a 3D simulation of a “hazard hunt” tests workers by having them identify all of the potential hazards on a building such as tilt, unsafe conditions and proximity to power lines and how to mitigate those risks. Fire safety prevention can be made into an immersive experience to help a worker identify the proper fire extinguisher based on the simulated fire, increasing the likelihood that they will make the right choice in the event of an emergency.

Simulations can also take tradesmen step-by-step through the process of working on specific tasks, allowing them to learn the process from start to finish and monitoring for the most common risk exposures. To become a signalman when working with cranes, the current process is to watch videos and memorize the hand motions. With simulators, workers can now be put into specific scenarios and learn how to proceed in the safest way and without endangering the person or equipment. Ultimately, new exposure-based training helps workers overcome any natural inclinations that put them in harm’s way and increases their awareness of all the risks of a specific task or job site.

Facilitating Effective Communication

Construction workers may be on a site for three months, or they might work on a job for one day. In both cases, contractors take on the same level of risk when it comes to ensuring each employee is appropriately trained. And with a workforce that is constantly in motion, construction managers face the challenge of tracking who has been trained on what. Paper filing systems and limited access to the training records while onsite can lead to oversights when it comes to identifying improperly trained workers.

Virtual training allows contractors to more easily track exactly who is trained on what, and store the important documents in a digital archive. By keeping critical information readily available digitally, onsite managers can more quickly confirm and step in if someone is not properly trained and manage overall communication for the duration of the project even as the job site’s workforce changes.    

Builders are also using digital communication platforms to address the communication disconnect between the home office and the front-line workforce, and in order to reduce the risk of miscommunication. These apps allow teams to send messages, emergency alerts and even just-in-time training videos that can highlight safety hazards specific to the job site to individuals or entire crews in an instant, helping to reduce unnecessary work stoppages and operational friction. They can also deliver micro-training refresher courses so that workers can better retain and implement the new knowledge and skills they have learned.

By deploying new types of digital training techniques, companies can improve communication and provide the front-line workforce with the right information to make safe decisions on a job site, reducing overall risk and most importantly, ensuring that their workers get home safely.

Earth Day 2020: What Does Climate Change Mean for Risk Management?

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On Earth Day 2020, risk professionals can reflect on ways to protect both the environment and their businesses. Worldwide, climate change poses countless risks, including increasing the frequency and magnitude of natural disasters, reducing access to resources and disrupting supply chains.

To celebrate Earth Day and help risk management professionals address environmental risks and climate change, here is a roundup of some of our coverage from the past year about these critical topics:

From Risk Management Magazine:

Aligning Sustainability and Risk Management: A collaborative approach between sustainability and ERM can best drive real change.

Taking Action on Climate Change: As the potentially devastating impacts of climate change become clear, risk managers must assess the resulting risk exposures and ­opportunities for their companies.

Insurers Divest from Coal Over Climate Risks: Insurers are pulling coverage and investments related to the mining and use of coal.

Will Climate Change Impact Reinsurance Rates?: As natural disaster losses mount, the reinsurance response could spur action on climate change.

Getting Serious About ESG Risks: Investors are increasingly scrutinizing environmental, social and governance activity.

From the Risk Management Monitor blog:

Venice Sees Near-Record Flooding: The city of Venice, Italy, faced the worst flooding of its famous canals since the devastating floods of 1966, suffering major economic impacts.

Catastrophic Floods More Frequent in 2019: Major flooding has become a normal occurrence for many regions of the country, and by all indications, it is becoming worse each year.

Global Heat Waves Signal Climate Risks: The pattern of dangerous heat waves has become a yearly occurrence across the globe. 

Texas Study Shows Business Impact of Major Storms: The large storms hitting the coast of Texas are having serious impacts on industries across the state and country.

Limit Organizational Exposure During the Polar Vortex: Tips for protecting businesses during the frigid weather phenomenon.

Spotting Coronavirus-Related Phishing Emails

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Amid widespread public concern and constantly evolving news about the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercriminals are finding new fodder for phishing campaigns. With the eagerness for new information about the coronavirus outbreak, distraction during disruption, and the disorienting shift to remote work for many, employees may be particularly susceptible to falling for these schemes right now.

Some of these phishing emails play off companies having employees work from home to launch credential-stealing attacks. Such phishing campaigns may impersonate IT teams or may direct recipients to fake login pages to access work networks or accounts remotely. See the screenshot at right for an example. Email security firm Mimecast’s Threat Intel team reported seeing over 300 examples of such a campaign using a fake OneDrive login.

“We see that threat actors are keeping up with the daily developments concerning the coronavirus,” said Mimecast’s Threat Intel team. “As the pandemic continues to spread and more and more people are made to work from home, we are seeing more phishing emails that are trying to trick users into giving their credentials through a faked login page. Threat actors are actively utilizing this pandemic to attempt to compromise individual’s accounts and organization’s networks. The potential for human error will inevitably increase in the coming weeks and we expect to see more of these phishing attempts in the coming days and weeks.”

Other phishing scams purport to be new updates from government authorities or public health organizations, directing recipients to click malicious links for updates on the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, new containment measures ordered by governments, or local advisories. Last month, the World Health Organization warned that some criminals were spoofing WHO officials to send fraudulent emails, and Kaspersky Labs reportedly found emails spoofing the CDC asking for Bitcoin donations to help fund a coronavirus vaccine. Some other phishing emails include malicious attachments purporting to be tips for protecting yourself from the coronavirus or maps of the outbreak, for example, but actually contain malware.

“We are living in a heightened time of cyberrisk,” said David Simpson, Virginia Tech professor and former chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. “Cybercriminals will take advantage of public fear and due diligence health measures to generate coronavirus-themed phishing attacks. We should be aware of unsolicited COVID-19 emails with specious links or attachments.”

To help employees detect these scams, check out the following infographic from Cofense’s Phishing Defense Center for tips on spotting coronavirus-related phishing emails:

Preparing for a Pandemic: Review Business Continuity Plans Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

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Organizations worldwide have been reacting to the recent coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19, in a variety of ways, from restricting nonessential employee travel to canceling large events. The possibility of a pandemic has the potential to disrupt workforces, supply chains and economic activity in the months ahead. So, it is with a sense of urgency that prudent organizations review and update their business continuity plans to insure their operational resiliency.

A healthy and available workforce is any organization’s most valuable asset. A pandemic will incapacitate some employees and result in other employees being quarantined. This could result in a major disruption to normal operations, with potentially large numbers of employees working from home or remote locations.

To protect your workforce and help ensure its continued productivity, it is critical to:

  • Establish a strategy that enables employees to continue to function without endangering them.
  • Have a plan to isolate employees should the threat of possible infection arise.
  • Ensure employees can effectively work from home.
  • Verify that you have the tools, technology, capacity, and security measures in place to support a large remote workforce.
  • Review your HR policies to ensure employees will not be personally impacted if they must be quarantined for an extended period and modify any policies as appropriate to give greater flexibility to normal working arrangements. 
  • Determine your priorities and the minimum staffing requirements to support these priorities, in case you need to function with a significantly reduced workforce.
  • Identify key employees and ensure other staff members have received appropriate training to comprehensively cover their absence.
  • Create a communications plan that includes providing employees and other stakeholders with regular situation updates as well as actions taken.

In a global economy, virtually every organization is connected to or dependent upon others. You may not be directly affected by a pandemic, but could be impacted if a vendor at a critical point in your supply chain is. Understanding your dependence on entities outside your organization is critical. Are your critical third parties (e.g., suppliers, vendors and service providers) prepared?

To protect your operations and ensure continuity of services or products to your customers, it is important that you:

  • Map your dependencies to understand where disruptions might impact your value chains.
  • Review the preparedness of your critical third parties (suppliers, vendors, service providers, etc.).
  • Identify single points of failure in your ecosystem.

When assessing the impact of a disruption to your ecosystem, it is important to recognize the amount of time before the actual impact occurs. So, as you review and update your plans, you should also conduct walkthroughs and exercises. This is the best method for identifying gaps in your procedures and will give you the highest chance of successful execution. Active participants will become familiar with the goals and objectives of the plan and begin to use it as guidance rather than a prescriptive list of tasks to be followed without applying rational thought. Practicing the execution of your plan ensures all necessary parties understand their roles and responsibilities.

During preparedness reviews, you should also assess the tools used to maintain relevant information and assist in executing your plans. Old technologies and obsolete tools will put successful execution of even the best plans at risk. Identify any deficiencies in the tools available and create a comprehensive list of requirements that will enhance your ability to execute. The sooner you begin to upgrade your tool set, the sooner you will be able to reduce execution risk.

An organization’s ability to effectively respond to a disruption of its workforce or a critical third-party not only depends on how effective you were in the planning process, but also how effective you were with the tools you have and the training you implemented. The tools you use to communicate, maintain situational awareness, and provide current and accurate information will also have a major impact on the execution of the plan.