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September 19, 2024 What to know – and do – to be prepared. Workplace emergencies can occur anywhere, at any time.   “Whether you’re a small-business owner or a large-business owner, it’s important to start thinking about the plans that you have in place to prepare for both natural and man-made disasters as soon as possible,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, director of public affairs and planning for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.   Here’s what you need to know to build an effective workplace emergency readiness plan.   Know the risks “Your safety plan could be the difference between chaos and control,” OSHA says. A risk assessment is a crucial first step.   “You need to know what threats you’re planning for, the likelihood of them and their potential impact,” said Amy Seymour, chief port security and emergency operations officer at Port Houston. “Whether it’s a hurricane, flood, tornado or winter weather, knowing what your organization is up against is key before you create your emergency plan.”   Ready.gov offers risk assessment resources for numerous potential events and hazards, including flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides and even volcanic activity.   As you begin to envision the potential hazards, think about building-related factors such as construction, processes and possible deficiencies. For example, does your building have a sprinkler system? If not, it’ll be more susceptible to fire damage.   “Each hazard could have many possible scenarios happening within or because of it,” the website states.   Seymour recommends including a diverse group of departments when forming and conducting the risk assessment to boost its thoroughness.   Rick Vulpitta is environmental, health and safety manager at Trialco Aluminum LLC and co-author of the National Safety Council’s “On-Site Emergency Response Planning Guide.” He encourages employers to develop charts related to each possible emergency.   “You want to plan for emergencies before they happen,” Vulpitta said. “Do your research. Contact your fire department and local county government emergency response agency and get a history of the disasters and emergencies during the last 50 years.   “They can assist, too, in learning what happened in the past to help you plan for today and tomorrow. Rate the type, frequency, length and impact it would have on your business’s operation, and then you can start planning how to mitigate each disaster and emergency. You’ll find weather emergencies, electric power, water, food and transportation disruptions will need to be addressed and considered because they’ll cause issues lasting several days to a couple of weeks to return to normal operations.”   Create procedures OSHA’s standard on emergency action plans (1910.38) requires employers to designate and train workers to assist in safe evacuations. Employers also must review the emergency action plan with all workers covered by it.   Organizations with more than 10 employees must develop a written plan, while those with fewer workers can communicate it orally.     Start with simple and clear procedures so that “everybody understands what they need to do,” Seymour said. “Make sure everyone understands their role and responsibilities, and make sure it’s easy to follow. And as an organization grows or as the program itself develops, you can introduce more complexity to it.”   Ready.gov directs employers to form a team to “direct the evacuation of the building and account for all employees outside at a safe location.”   Teams should include a leader, wardens and searchers for each floor, stairwell and elevator monitors, aides for workers with disabilities, and monitors for the assembly area. Additional team members are required for organizations with multiple shifts.   Rothenberg notes that some severe-weather emergencies – such as tornadoes – require workers to shelter in place. Ensure an emergency kit with a flashlight, water and other essential supplies is available. Also, designate a person to monitor news reports for any updates to emergency instructions.   Whether the scenario requires workers to evacuate or move to a designated onsite shelter, employees need regular retraining, Vulpitta stressed. Workers should understand their role in an emergency and how to exit the building in multiple different ways.   They should also know to stay in the designated assembly area so they can be accounted for. Vulpitta said the fire department, before fighting a fire, will conduct a search and rescue if anyone is missing during a roll call. If a worker has evacuated the building but wandered from the assembly site, this could mean additional damage to the facility.   If visitors or contractors are onsite, assist them in evacuating to the assembly area, NSC’s planning guide states.   Communication and training OSHA 1910.38(d) requires employers to maintain an employee alarm system that uses a “distinctive signal” for each emergency.   Experts recommend supplementing alarm systems with additional backup communication, whether through public-address announcements, phone trees, or email or text alerts.   “Communication is critical in any type of emergency,” Seymour said. “Having a person who is in charge of that communication is the most important thing that you can do.   “It’s important to have different approaches so that you can reach more people. If you have a large facility, you’re going to want to have a multifaceted alert system that will help you get that messaging out.”   Experts stress that the communication process must be ongoing throughout the emergency.   “To many people, the fortune is in the follow-up,” Seymour said. “Making sure that you’re communicating the before, the during and the after of the event. Sometimes, people just want to know everything is fine. If there’s something that’s not fine, then you’ll want to make sure that you’re communicating to people the timeline for the recovery and an estimation of when normal operation is estimated to resume.”   Seymour adds that “your communication is only as good as your training.” She recommends employers conduct emergency response training at least annually or as people change key roles or responsibilities. Seymour also supports regular refresher training, including short video clips that allow workers to sharpen their awareness yet keep their attention.   Drills will help keep employees sharp as well, Vulpitta said, as they allow workers an opportunity for repetition and familiarization.   Vulpitta recommends asking the fire department to observe drills and offer input. He also encourages employers to simulate different situations. Hold an evacuation drill without the use of the alarm. This will help develop a stronger plan and give workers the confidence to continue to exit if an alarm goes down.   “The better you can prepare employees, the better they’ll respond in an actual event,” Vulpitta said.

September 18, 2024 Orlando, FL — Although OSHA remains largely a regulatory and enforcement agency, it’s recently started prioritizing safety culture.   Why?   “It’s where the rubber meets the road on how organizations live in the real world,” Andrew Levinson, director of OSHA’s Directorate of Standards and Guidance, said Monday during a presentation at the 2024 NSC Safety Congress & Expo. “We recognize that we can’t get what we need out of safety and health programs without talking about safety culture.”   OSHA is again focusing on safety as a core value. (It was also the theme of agency leader Doug Parker’s keynote presentation on Tuesday.)   Agency efforts aimed at reinforcing the idea include the launch of the Come Home Safe video series, which looks at workplace fatalities and the people affected by them.   “When we talk about safety,” Levinson said, “it’s not usually what’s going on in the workplace that motivates people. It’s, ‘I want to get home to my wife, to my kids, to my husband, to my parents or to my loved ones.’ There are some really gut-wrenching stories. The statistics matter, but they’re not the story.”   In addition, OSHA is developing a leadership toolkit on safety culture and starting “Safety in 5” – essentially a series of toolbox talks.     “There are a lot of industries that don’t use that term (toolbox talks),” Levinson said. “We’re hoping to build out a library of hundreds of these.”   During the session, Levinson also provided a few regulatory updates. It’s a “safe bet,” he said, that OSHA will extend its comment period deadline (Dec. 30) for its proposed rule on heat illness prevention.   He added that the agency’s proposed rules on infectious diseases, tree care, and workplace violence in health care and social settings might appear in four to six months, at the earliest.

September17, 2024 Orlando, FL — For the 14th consecutive fiscal year, Fall Protection – General Requirements is OSHA’s most frequently cited standard, the agency and Safety+Health announced during the 2024 NSC Safety Congress & Expo.   Scott Ketcham, director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, presented the preliminary list – which represents OSHA Information System data from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 5 – and S+H Associate Editor Kevin Druley moderated the session from the Learning Lab on the Expo Floor.   “OSHA takes falls very seriously,” Ketcham said during the presentation. “We’re trying to curb this hazard and make inroads to help people understand the standard and requirements.   “Too many lives are lost each year from workers who fall to their death.”   The standards that comprise the Top 10 remained unchanged from FY 2023. However, movement occurred within the ranking. Respiratory Protection, which ranked seventh in FY 2023, climbed three spots to No. 4. Scaffolding, meanwhile, fell four spots to No. 8.   “What’s more precious than our lungs?” Ketcham asked the audience.   The full list: Fall Protection – General Requirements (1926.501): 6,307 violations Hazard Communication (1910.1200): 2,888 Ladders (1926.1053): 2,573 Respiratory Protection (1910.134): 2,470 Lockout/Tagout (1910.147): 2,443 Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178): 2,248 Fall Protection – Training Requirements (1926.503): 2,050 Scaffolding (1926.451): 1,873 Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (1926.102): 1,814 Machine Guarding (1910.212): 1,541   “While incredible advancements are made in safety each year, we continue to see many of the same types of violations appear on OSHA’s Top 10 list,” said Lorraine M. Martin, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “As a safety community, it’s critical we come together to acknowledge these persistent trends and identify solutions to better protect our workforces.”     Immediately after Ketcham’s presentation, Mark Chung, executive vice president of safety leadership and advocacy at NSC, and Ken Kolosh, the council’s statistics manager, presented “The Injuries Behind the Fines.”   Kolosh emphasized that the Bureau of Labor Statistics data be presented   isn’t a one-to-one relationship, that it’s provided for illustrative purposes – not benchmarking. He went on to say that the “injuries and fatality events are provided as examples that may be associated with the violation.”   Using the Top 10 list, Chung said the BLS data shows that falls accounted for 865 workplace fatalities in 2022. Of those, 700 were the result of a fall to a lower level.   Other reported causes of death in 2022, per BLS: Transportation incidents: 2,066 Workplace violence: 865 Overdose: 525 Exposure to electricity: 145 Forklift, order picker, platform truck – Powered: 73 Caught in running equipment or machinery during maintenance or cleaning: 54 Caught in running equipment: 35   “There have been increasing numbers of overdoses,” Chung said. “We need to keep an eye on this and deploy proper countermeasures.”

September 17, 2024   Younger small business owners seem to be less aware of the importance of workplace safety than older owners, showing an apparent gap between generations in how they approach keeping workers from harm.   A survey from Pie Insurance conducted with more than 1,000 business owners shows 69% of small business owners aged 55 and older have not reported an injury in the workplace in the past five years, while less than a quarter (23%) of younger owners aged 18 to 34 have not reported a workplace injury in the past five years. For owners aged 34 to 54, the figure was 41%.   However, the survey does show the sentiment for improving workplace safety among younger business owners is on the rise, with 47% of younger business owners saying that from the start they would have focused more on safety, employee training and industry risks. That figure is 14% for business owners aged 55 and older.   It’s clear from the survey that younger business owners are taking accountability, and they plan to make improvements in hopes of beefing up worker safety, said Carla Woodard, senior vice president of claims for Pie Insurance.   “I think they’re becoming more and more aware because the cost of doing business is rising, and claims costs, unfortunately, can impact them,” Woodard said.   Half (50%) of all small business owners in the survey said they had a workplace injury claim in the last five years. More than one-in-10 (13%) of business owners said mental stress was the most commonly reported workplace injury.   The industries with the largest volume of claims are the ones that require labor and physical demand, according to Woodard.   “Safety [in these industries] not only requires education and process and how they’re doing their work but also making sure that they control the hazards surrounding any sort of machinery, maintenance, hazardous materials, etc.” Woodard said.   Why are older business owners more tuned into worker safety than younger ones?   “I think a lot of it just has to do with their time and experience in the industries in which they work and own their businesses,” Woodard said. “If you think about it, younger business owners may not have had the same time and experiencing managing risks thinking about things like workplace safety, which unfortunately makes them a bit more prone to overlooking hazards and unsafe practices that a more experienced, tenured business owner might be aware of.”   When asked for their worst workplace safety scenario, many owners cited unforeseen hazards like natural disasters, workplace violence and mental health.   Those fears should prompt more discussions about employee mental health, and being better prepared, Woodard said.   Workplace safety for heatwaves was also a concern, with 65% of business owners having plans in place to address the rising temperatures—35% had no plans to prevent heat-related workplace illnesses and injuries.   Pie Insurance commissioned Yougov PLC to conduct the survey. The total sample size was 1,034 U.S. small business owners, defined by companies with one to 500 employees. The survey was conducted online between Feb. 19 and Feb. 27.

September 13, 2024 New long-term injury data collected across multiple companies revealed significantly reduced muscle fatigue and strain complaints when exosuits were worn according to manufacturer HeroWear.   Exosuits are a type of exoskeleton — wearable devices that augment, enable, assist, and/or enhance physical activity — made primarily from soft, flexible materials.   After deploying its Apex 2 exosuits at multiple distribution centers in the United States, worker injury data from over 280,000 hours of work were collected and analyzed. The dataset is equivalent to 140 full-time employees working for one year while regularly wearing exosuits, encompassing an estimated 50-60 million lifts by workers.   The study found that zero back injuries were reported among workers wearing exosuits.   Additionally, exosuit users reported a 25 percent decrease in work-related bodily discomfort and a 20 percent reduction in work-related fatigue on average.   Before the exosuit rollout, the distribution centers estimated 10.5 back injuries throughout this period based on historical injury rates.   “These are exciting results for companies looking to reduce injury risk for their workers. Our clients are committed to both protecting their people and saving healthcare costs,” said HeroWear Chief Executive Officer Mark Harris. “We are encouraged to see our users are not just safer at work, but their quality of life is improving. Users report they are less sore at work and less tired at the end of the day, with many describing that they are using this additional energy to spend more time doing things they love.”   Previously, there was little long-term injury data regarding industrial exoskeleton or exosuit use even though use of the device is rapidly emerging across industries to reduce back strain.   Academic and industry studies have validated the effectiveness of HeroWear’s exosuits, which typically take 20-40 percent of the load off the user’s back muscles as they perform repetitive bending and lifting motions.     “People have been asking for longitudinal data on exosuits for years, so we were excited to gather and share this injury data reported by clients,” said Dr. Karl Zelik, HeroWear co-founder and chief scientific officer.   “These and other clients seeing success are expanding and rolling out exosuits with more workers and at additional sites. We are very data-centric and plan to keep collecting data for millions of hours. We will keep learning, sharing, and focusing on how exosuits impact injury rates over time, across different sites, and industries.   So far, results have been outstanding, and we’re thrilled this technology can help people do their jobs safely and without sacrificing their bodies.”

September 12, 2024 A new study focuses on how pivotal moments in the workplace can have a significant impact on the employee experience.   HR Acuity, an employee relations case management and investigations software provider, found four specific experiences that can hurt or help an employer when it comes to employee workplace perception.   The study, “2024 Rethinking Employee Experience: Four Critical Overlooked Moments,” surveyed 2,206 U.S. employees from a cross-section of industries, organizational sizes and demographics.   The first relates to leaves of absences, which are on the rise . Since 2023, 40 percent of survey respondents took a leave of absence to address medical concerns, family care or mental health issues.   Of the employees who went on leave, only 36 percent of employees were likely to refer their employer as a great place to work. When the leave was handled well, the referral rate increased to 48 percent. This suggests that compassionate processes from intake through aftercare are crucial to maintaining employee trust and protecting brand reputation, the study found.   Harassment and misconduct continue to be an issue in the workplace . Forty-one percent of employees experienced or witnessed inappropriate, unethical or illegal behaviors since the start of 2023.   The survey founds 50 percent of employees experienced or witnessed misconduct or harassment when working remotely, up 32 percentage points from HR Acuity’s 2023 Workplace Misconduct Study.   At the same time, reporting rates for inappropriate, unethical or illegal behavior remain high, the study found. Seventy-five percent of respondents who witnessed an incident went on to report it.   For those who experienced misconduct or harassment, the reporting rate jumped to 85 percent.   One in four employees did not report bad behavior, according to the study, citing a lack of trust that their company would handle it appropriately (52 percent), feeling that the matter wouldn’t be taken seriously (44 percent), or a fear of retaliation or reputation damage (43 percent).   Employees exposed to harassment or misconduct were more likely to recommend their employer when their reported issue was investigated and resolved (51 versus 36 percent).   Layoffs, reductions in force and restructurings were found to have a larger impact on the entire workforce—not just those impacted, the study noted. Potential gaps in communication and support for remaining employees through times of transition should be identified and addressed.   Of those who lost jobs, were reassigned or experienced reduced hours (69 percent) felt the situation was well-handled.   More than half of unaffected employees (56 percent) were less likely to agree the situation was handled well, indicating that support for the remaining staff during times of transition is worth the investment.   Only 23 percent of respondents gained trust in their employer based on their experience, the study found, suggesting opportunities to improve workplace communication and transition processes.   “Today’s workforce expects trust, transparency, accountability and flexibility from their employers. Yet, our survey found that organizations are missing the mark on providing effective support and follow-through care during critical employee moments. This has huge implications on loyalty, referral rate, brand reputation and retention,” said Deb Muller, CEO of HR Acuity.

September 4, 2024 Safety professionals have lauded using a “buddy system” to mitigate workplace injuries in high-risk industries as a best practice, but the move to establish such work teams doesn’t fit all situations, experts say.   Concerns over issues such as passing on inconsistent safety practices and the expense of such programs need to be considered, they say.   In a report issued Aug. 20 by Pinnacol Assurance, buddy systems, where workers are paired, were listed among the recommendations for preventing heat-related injuries. The report, which culled data from the Denver-based insurer’s workers compensation claims, stated that workers are 52% more susceptible to workplace injuries on hot days, including strains, cuts, falls and injuries that occur when an object strikes a worker.   Monica Cabrera, a Pueblo, Colorado-based safety learning specialist with Pinnacol, said “buddy systems are great for monitoring and managing workload and high-temperature environments.”   “For example, if an employee has to go into a confined space, the buddy system benefits them,” she said.   The system also allows for early intervention if a worker shows symptoms of heat-related illness or any other illness or “if they’re just having a bad day and they’re making more mistakes than usual,” she said. “Somebody else can notice that before they actually get injured due to their distraction.”   Kevin O’Sadnick, St. Louis-based risk control manager for workers comp insurer Safety National Casualty Corp., said that while he likes buddy systems — especially for workers in remote areas — employers may be hindered by the expenses associated with deploying pairs of people to do a job that often requires just one worker.   Another concern is when a newer worker picks up the bad safety habits of a longer-tenured worker, he said. “One bad apple turns into two, and you could potentially have a new employee learning bad work habits right out of the gate. … That’s maybe where management would come in; where there’s a lot of checks and balances that maybe need to be in place.”   Buddy systems risk excluding management when communicating safety, said Chris Hayes, Hartford, Connecticut-based risk control assistant vice president for workers compensation and transportation for Travelers Cos. Inc.   Such a system “can help support a risk management program, but on its own, it really lacks the things that we would look for in any serious, very structured risk management program,” he said.   “When you put all the emphasis on peer-to-peer coaching, you lose a lot in translation. If you have peer-to-peer coaching, you don’t have any sort of consistency in what’s being coached.”

September 4, 2024 Annual workers’ compensation rate cuts in the double digits have become routine in almost every U.S. state in recent years. That trend may have now come to an end in Florida, where the National Council on Compensation Insurance is recommending a 1% average decrease for the voluntary market. It’s the smallest decrease in more than seven years. The NCCI said the rate, if approved by Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation, is largely the result of higher reimbursements for physicians, starting in January 2025. Florida lawmakers, with Senate Bill 362 , earlier this year approved a new workers’ compensation maximum reimbursement plan for physicians for the first time in years, allowing a big jump in pay for doctors – from 110% of Medicare’s reimbursement schedule to 175%, in many instances. Surgery rates will climb from 140% to 210% of Medicare’s reimbursement, the law reads. The new fee schedule can be accessed here . State law requires legislative review when changes affect businesses’ bottom lines by more than $1 million, statewide, and lawmakers had declined to ratify the reimbursement manual until recently. A health care provider reimbursement manual  was approved by Florida legislators in 2023. “NCCI estimates that SB 362 will result in an impact of +5.6% on overall workers compensation system costs,” the NCCI said in a summary of the proposed rate change. “Excluding the impact of this bill from the filing would result in a revised overall rate decrease of –6.4% as opposed to the filed –1.0% change.” The smaller rate decrease may come as a relief to some roofing contractors, who last year worried that repeated cuts were overlooking safety concerns in the industry and could ultimately lead to higher rates or potential revenue problems for self-insureds. In the last half-decade, Florida has seen average rate decreases of 15.1% for 2024; 8.4% for 2023; 4.9% for 2022; 6.6% for 2021; 7.5% for 2020; and 13.8% for 2019. The 2025 rate recommendation was based partly on data from policy years 2021 and 2021. The NCCI, which recommends rates and loss cost decreases for 38 states, said that lost-time claim frequency has continued to decrease in Florida and most states. Across the country, claim severity changes have been moderate. “The continued focus on worker safety and technological advancements are regarded as contributing to fewer workplace injuries over time,” the summary noted. “The latest medical severity change aligns with projected medical inflation, while indemnity severity tracked with changes in average weekly wages.” The council last week offered a webinar  explaining its new weighted medical price index, along with a report  on medical inflation.

August 29, 2024 On a hot summer day in Oak Ridge, Tenn., dozens of men removed pipes, asbestos and hazardous waste while working to decontaminate a nuclear facility and prepare it for demolition.   Dressed in head-to-toe coveralls and fitted with respirators, the crew members toiling in a building without power had no obvious respite from the heat. Instead, they wore armbands that recorded their heart rates, movements and exertion levels for signs of heat stress.   Stephanie Miller, a safety and health manager for a U.S. government contractor doing cleanup work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, watched a computer screen nearby. A color-coding system with little bubbles showing each worker’s physiological data alerted her if anyone was in danger of overheating.   “Heat is one of the greatest risks that we have in this work, even though we deal with high radiation, hazardous chemicals and heavy metals,” Miller said.   As the world experiences more record high temperatures, employers are exploring wearable technologies to keep workers safe. New devices collect biometric data to estimate core body temperature—an elevated one is a symptom of heat exhaustion—and prompt workers to take cool-down breaks.   The devices, which were originally developed for athletes, firefighters and military personnel, are getting adopted at a time when the Atlantic Council estimates heat-induced losses in labor productivity could cost the U.S. approximately $100 billion annually.   But there are concerns about how the medical information collected on employees will be safeguarded. Some labor groups worry managers could use it to penalize people for taking needed breaks.   “Any time you put any device on a worker, they’re very concerned about tracking, privacy, and how are you going to use this against me,” said Travis Parsons, director of occupational safety and health at the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America. “There’s a lot of exciting stuff out there, but there’s no guardrails around it.”   Vulnerable to Heat At the Tennessee cleanup site, the workers wearing heat stress monitors made by Atlanta company SlateSafety are employed by United Cleanup Oak Ridge. The company is a contractor of the U.S. Department of Energy, which has rules to prevent on-the-job overheating.   But most U.S. workers lack protections from extreme heat because there are no federal regulations requiring them, and many vulnerable workers don’t speak up or seek medical attention. In July, the Biden administration proposed a rule to protect 36 million workers from heat-related illnesses.   From 1992 to 2022, 986 workers died from heat exposure in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Experts suspect the number is higher because a coroner might not list heat as the cause of death if a sweltering roofer takes a fatal fall.   Setting occupational safety standards can be tricky because individuals respond differently to heat. That’s where the makers of wearable devices hope to come in.   How Wearable Heat Tech Works Employers have observed workers for heat-related distress by checking their temperatures with thermometers, sometimes rectally. More recently, firefighters and military personnel swallowed thermometer capsules.   “That just was not going to work in our work environment,” Rob Somers, global environment, health and safety director at consumer product company Perrigo, said.   Instead, more than 100 employees at the company’s infant formula plants were outfitted with SlateSafety armbands. The devices estimate a wearer’s core body temperature, and a reading of 101.3 degrees triggers an alert.   Another SlateSafety customer is a Cardinal Glass factory in Wisconsin, where four masons maintain a furnace that reaches 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.   “They’re right up against the face of the wall. So it’s them and fire,” Jeff Bechel, the company’s safety manager, said.   Cardinal Glass paid $5,000 for five armbands, software and air-monitoring hardware. Bechel thinks the investment will pay off; an employee’s two heat-related emergency room visits cost the company $15,000.   Another wearable, made by Massachusetts company Epicore Biosystems, analyzes sweat to determine when workers are at risk of dehydration and overheating.   “Until a few years ago, you just sort of wiped (sweat) off with a towel,” CEO Rooz Ghaffari said. “Turns out there’s all this information packed away that we’ve been missing.”   Research has shown some devices successfully predict core body temperature in controlled environments, but their accuracy remains unproven in dynamic workplaces, according to experts. A 2022 research review said factors such as age, gender and ambient humidity make it challenging to reliably gauge body temperature with the technology.   The United Cleanup Oak Ridge workers swathed in protective gear can get sweaty even before they begin demolition. Managers see dozens of sensor alerts daily.   Laborer Xavier Allison, 33, was removing heavy pieces of ductwork during a recent heat wave when his device vibrated. Since he was working with radioactive materials and asbestos, he couldn’t walk outside to rest without going through a decontamination process, so he spent about 15 minutes in a nearby room which was just as hot.   “You just sit by yourself and do your best to cool off,” Allison said.   The armband notifies workers when they’ve cooled down enough to resume work.   “Ever since we implemented it, we have seen a significant decrease in the number of people who need to get medical attention,” Miller said.   Collecting Personal Data United Cleanup Oak Ridge uses the sensor data and an annual medical exam to determine work assignments, Miller said. After noticing patterns, the company sent a few employees to see their personal physicians, who found heart issues the employees hadn’t known about, she said.   At Perrigo, managers analyze the data to find people with multiple alerts and speak to them to see if there’s “a reason why they’re not able to work in the environment,” Somers said. The information is organized by identification numbers, not names, when it goes into the company’s software system, he said.   Companies keeping years of medical data raises concerns about privacy and whether bosses may use the information to kick an employee off a health plan or fire them, said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.   “The device could hurt, frankly, because you could raise your hand and say ‘I need a break,’ and the boss could say, ‘No, your heart rate is not elevated, go back to work,'” Schwartz said.   To minimize such risks, employers should allow workers to opt in or out of wearing monitoring devices, only process strictly necessary data and delete the information within 24 hours, he said.   Wearing such devices also may expose workers to unwanted marketing, Ikusei Misaka, a professor at Tokyo’s Musashino University, said.   A Partial Solution The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health advises employers to institute a plan to help workers adjust to hot conditions and to train them to recognize signs of heat-related illness and to administer first aid. Wearable devices can be part of efforts to reduce heat stress, but more work needs to be done to determine their accuracy, said Doug Trout, the agency’s medical officer.   The technology also needs to be paired with access to breaks, shade and cool water, since many workers, especially in agriculture, fear retaliation for pausing to cool off or hydrate.   “If they don’t have water to drink, and the time to do it, it doesn’t mean much,” Juanita Constible, senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. “It’s just something extra they have to carry when they’re in the hot fields.”