New App to Measure Heat Stress Risk

As we start gearing up for warmer weather, it's important to shift gears and begin considering the risk of heat stress on employees as well. The AIHA has made an app available to help employers keep tabs of the risk of heat stress. The app is available for both iOS and Android, can monitor multiple locations for heat stress risk, and can send alerts if heat stress is elevated in any monitored location.

We also downloaded this app to see how it works, and it is very intuitive. It takes you through a set of questions upon start up, including the work hours to be monitored, which location(s), and whether you'd classify the work being done as "light, moderate, heavy, or very heavy" with examples of work for each category supplied. 

If you would like to start using the app as a tool in your heat stress risk reduction bucket, you can search for the app called "AIHA Heat Stress" in your app store.

 

Telecom Training & Safety Becomes Technical Training & Safety

If you attended our conference last month, then you already know an exciting development: We have changed our name from Telecom Training & Safety to Technical Training & Safety. This change reflects a shift in terminology in the industry since TT&S' inception and better reflects our organizational goals.

 Please let us know if you have any questions!

A conference of technical education and skills improvement with fun, socializing, and prizes!

The future of the broadband industry was on display at the 2025 TT&S Annual Conference & Vendor Showcase!

Taking place at The Bismarck Hotel from February 18-20, 2025, the event saw its second best attendance ever, including a small group from far outside our region.

Tuesday

The conference opened in the Bismarck Hotel's Missouri Ballroom with a pre-show product showcase for exhibitors to highlight who they are and/or the products they sell. Zyxel went beyond that with a short presentation to attendees about their company and products. They provide Wi-Fi, fiber, and other equipment and services to the broadband industry.

An announcement was also made during the opening about TT&S--we recently changed our name and logo. Telecom Training & Safety is now Technical Training & Safety to better reflect the changes in the industry that we serve.

Kicking off the main event was our keynote speaker, Dr. William Aderholdt of Grand Farm, who explained how broadband is serving ag industry advancements. The detailed levels of technology that farmers can use to plan crops, spraying, and managing the soil require a lot of infrastructure, especially for large acreage farms, in terms of Wi-Fi, drones, sensors, and more. Advances in technology and our broadband services aid in food production around the world, and Grand Farm is implementing all the resources available. The future will require all that our industry has to offer!

From the opening presentations, attendees moved into the Dakota Ballroom for the vendor social. Not only were attendee numbers up, but our vendor room was full!

While visiting with exhibitors at their booths, attendees enjoyed free beer and snacks, and even some free drinks at the cash bar thanks to the social sponsors for the event: Ditch Witch of ND, ReadiTech Engineering, Precision Underground, Power & Tel, and MP Nexlevel.

one night of door prizes
from TT&S and the vendors!

Our third annual Tech Wars contest took place at the Tuesday vendor social with three 3-person teams competing in cat 5 termination, fiber splicing, and a time deduction bean bag toss. The winning team was from SRT Communications with second place going to BEK Communications and third place going to United Communications. Congratulations to the winners!

TT&S and its vendors also gave away many door prizes during each vendor social. The time was filled with calling out numbers and handing out prizes ranging from gift cards to sporting gear to appliances and electronics. (All winners must be present to win.) Half the prizes were given out during the Tuesday social, along with a BruMate cooler. The cooler drawing is based on filling out an exhibitor bingo card with stamps from vendors.

Wednesday

After a filling buffet breakfast Wednesday morning, attendees were off to the breakout sessions to learn something new to help them on the job. Sessions included soft skills like Excel and customer service and technical skills in fiber optics, Wi-Fi and networking, advanced locating, and even battery safety and AI.

While attendees were busy in breakout sessions in the Governors Room and Missouri Ballroom, TT&S hosted high school students from across the state for the Connecting the World: Introduction to the Broadband Services Industry Mini-Conference for Students in the Dakota Ballroom. Several TT&S member companies sponsored students and chaperones from their areas.

Students were introduced to networking by Andrew Walding, owner and instructor from Cellstream, in his session "A Day in the Life of Your Internet Packets: How the Internet Works." Following that, a panel of TT&S member company HR Managers and technicians and two BSC telecommunications instructors answered questions and engaged the students with information about the broadband company workplaces, including training opportunities, wages, and benefits, and the company cultures.

At noon, everyone came together in the hotel Courtyard for a delicious hot meal featuring BBQ beef brisket and breaded chicken breast with sauces, vegetables, baked potatoes, salad, and a variety of pies and cheesecakes. While everyone enjoyed the meal, TT&S recognized special accomplishments by member company employees, particularly those who prove safe driving skills by reaching specific levels of miles driven without a serious accident.

Attendees finished out the afternoon breakout sessions with many returning presenters and new presenters. Some of our presenters were juggled to fit in the schedule in both the main conference and student mini-conference events, switching between afternoon or morning with students and regular attendee sessions.

Afternoon hands-on fiber optics stations for students were hosted by Steve Wolles of AFL, Sean Kelly of Light Brigade, Mike Lamb of OFS and Larry Robbert of PLP, and Andrew Degidio of Sumitomo Electric. This hands-on portion was mentioned in the February 28, 2025, BPS Community Newsletter promoting Career and Technical Education Month with a picture of Andrew from Sumitomo.

After a heavy day of learning, high school students had the option of a tour at Dakota Carrier Network before heading home while attendees wound down with drinks and snacks at the Wednesday vendor social. At the social, the last of the door prizes were given out, along with a Yeti cooler.

The third annual TT&S Cornhole Tournament also took place at the Wednesday social with the top three teams all going home with prizes. TT&S gave trophies and a set of boards and bags to each member of the winning team, The Ringers. The second place team, Master Blasters, took home trophies. However, since they were vendors who had wanted to get in on the fun, they left the prize for second place to go to a third place team. A third place play-off was held, and the bag sets went to the DCT team. Congratulations to all! We hope everyone had a fun time.

Jane Wigen of NTCA
closes out the 2025 conference

Thursday

The final day was a day to sit and relax a bit. After a hearty breakfast, the final two sessions took place. Special Agent Luke Kapella of the ND Bureau of Criminal Investigations presented his "Drug of Abuse" session. In that, he shared warning signs of illicit drug issues when going onto the premises of customers.

After Special Agent Kapella, one more speaker closed out the conference. For 2025, instead of holding her retirement planning overview as a breakout session with limited space, Jane Wigen, the NTCA rep for our region, was the closing speaker for all attendees with a very informative presentation on planning for a solid financial future and retirement.

The conference closed out as a success with many learning opportunities for attendees to improve their knowledge for their jobs, along with time to socialize over drinks and games.

We also enjoyed meeting students from across the state and giving them the opportunity to see what our industry does for the world. The future of our broadband is in the hands of young men and women like those who attended the student mini-conference. TT&S hopes the event inspired them to consider this important industry as a future career path. Maybe some day we'll see them attending the main conference as broadband company employees!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of this event! We hope you'll join us again in 2026!

Safety Incentives: The good, the bad, the ugly

 

Does your company have safety incentives?

Maybe the term "safety incentives" is intimidating. Do you recognize employees who demonstrate safe behaviors? Are your employees recognized during TT&S' conference for safe driving?

If you can say yes to either of these, then you have safety incentives. Good for you!

Trying to have any kind of safety incentive is evidence of management's commitment to safety, which is an absolutely essential component to an effective safety program. 

That being said, not all safety incentives are created equal. There are some that can really bolster your program and give you more information about how to improve for the future. And then, there are some that can actually damage the program. Let's take a look at a few examples.

Very common mistake: Days since last accident countdowns

We've all seen a sign, lots of times in a maintenance shop, counting down the days since the last accident or incident. The good about this strategy is that it does boost safety awareness, so it's not all bad. However, if you're looking to step up your program and follow best practices, it's not the best way forward. These signs and any other incentives given to employees for a certain time period spent without any incidents drives down incident reporting. And believe it or not, that's a bad thing.

Because of things like these incident countdown signs, employees may not want to report an incident so they don't disappoint coworkers or supervisors. They may keep an incident to themselves, or even an injury that they initially don't feel is too bad, but worsens over time and becomes in need of more treatment. They also may not feel free to report near misses, which could repeat and end up injuring someone.

This flavor of safety incentive can come in a few different forms:

- Days since last accident sign posted

- Employee annual / quarterly goal about not having any injuries on the job

- Pressure from management on low incident reporting numbers

 A better way forward - "Good catch" programs

Rather than pressuring employees to keep incidents down, an alternative is to recognize employees who report incidents, near misses, or any other safety concerns. These are often called "Good Catch" programs. It can be as simple as recognizing the employee during an all-company or safety meeting.

This requires a lot of messaging and modeling to employees to become successful, especially if you're transitioning from a "No Incidents" culture to "Good Catch." Employees will be hesitant to come forward for a while, so you may have to dig deep to begin with to get the system going. If someone has questions about a paint they're using and whether they need to use PPE? Great - that's a "good catch." If they joined a safety walkaround and pointed out a potential hazard: "Good catch!"

Examples of ways to implement a program like this:

- Incorporate into employee annual / quarterly goals opportunities for "good catches," such as:

    - Joining a safety walkaround

    - Evaluating a routine work process for hazards

    - Participating in a job hazard analysis

- Sometimes a specific incentive can help, too. What about a gift card? 

The important thing is to NEVER punish employees for reporting incidents (except in the most obviously negligent cases), and to PRAISE a ton for bringing up a "good catch."

Again, if you already have a safety incentive system, that's a great start! If it's more weighted toward the "No Incidents" side of things, consider making some tweaks to make it more palatable for employees to report "Good Catches."

OSHA Fine Increase for 2025

It's a brand new year, and everyone knows what that means: adjustments to OSHA fines based on inflation!

Here at TT&S, we sincerely hope that isn't the first thing you think about with the new year, but it's important to remember that those fines can be a steep judgment placed on your company's safety program.

The newest adjustments include a maximum of $16,550 for serious or other-than-serious violations, and $165,514 for willful or repeated violations. Remember, that is a fine per EACH violation, not a cumulative total per OSHA visit.

What a fine ultimately will be is a complex question that includes a large set of criteria. OSHA has an equation that takes into account the gravity of the violation, the size of the employer's business, the good faith efforts of the employer, and the employer's history of previous violations.

Once the penalty has been exacted, an employer has a few different options to respond to and potentially negotiate. But the truth still stands: OSHA penalties are there to enforce health and safety regulations, so keep your safety program sharp!

Near Miss Programs: A Crystal Ball into Safety

Does your company have a near miss reporting program?

Maybe it's already embedded into your incident reporting procedures. But when is the last time someone has reported a near miss?

While it takes some work to make employees comfortable reporting near misses, those reports are extremely valuable. They are like a "second chance" for your company to rewind and make some changes before someone gets hurt or property becomes damaged.

Let's take a step back here and discuss what a near miss is.

Near misses are basically just what they sound like. It's an event where no one was hurt, property was not damaged, but it almost happened. Here are some examples that hopefully don't hit too close to home.

In the old way of doing things, these incidents would not have resulted in a report since there was no injury, illness, or property damage. But in that case you would have lost a golden opportunity to learn from the event and prevent it from repeating in the future.

Employees should be encouraged to report near misses. However, if they are at all concerned they may be punished for reporting, they will not be incentivized to report. It's important to stress that no one will be punished for reporting a near miss. Best practices dictate that employees should be incentivized and recognized for reporting any near misses as well.

Once you have that near miss report in hand, your work is not done. It's a great idea to treat these reports the way you would an incident report. Open an investigation, determine root cause with an analysis, and open up any action items needed to mitigate the potential for a related incident in the future.

It's not every day that we get to have specific safety knowledge about our company or industry handed to us on a silver platter. Take advantage of the opportunity and keep everyone just that little bit safer!
 

PPE Fit for Employees - Now a Requirement

A new PPE requirement for construction will be going into effect mid-January 2025. While providing PPE to employees has already been the responsibility of the employer, the new requirement mandates that employers must also ensure construction PPE fits properly.

The final rule (available here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/12/2024-29220/personal-protective-equipment-in-construction) summarizes some of the hazards that can come from PPE not fitting properly:

"In some cases, ill-fitting PPE may not protect an employee at all, and in other cases it may present additional hazards to that employee and to employees who work around them. For example:

• Sleeves of protective clothing that are too long or gloves that do not fit properly may make it difficult to use tools or operate equipment, putting the wearer and other workers at risk of exposure to hazards, or may get caught in machinery, resulting in injuries to the wearer such as fractures or amputations. 
• The legs of protective garments that are too long could cause tripping hazards for the worker with the improperly fitting PPE and could also impact others working near that worker. 
• Protective clothing that is too small may increase a worker's exposure to hazards by, for example, providing insufficient coverage from dangerous machinery or hazardous substances. 
• The issue of improperly fitting PPE is particularly important for smaller construction workers, including some women, who may not be able to use currently existing standard-size PPE. 
• Fit problems can also affect larger workers, and standard-size PPE does not always accommodate varying body shapes."

It's been a long road to recognizing the issues with one-size-fits-all PPE. With the change, it would be a good idea for companies to inventory their current PPE over the off season and stock up on different sizes as needed prior to the beginning of construction season in spring 2025.

Happy Holidays from TT&S!

 
Happy Holidays from our team to yours! It's a great season to celebrate the efforts that everyone has taken to keep workers safe. We look forward to the new year in assisting member companies with their safety and training programs.

 

3rd Annual TT&S Tech Wars & Cornhole Tournaments

The TT&S Annual Conference & Vendor Showcase is coming soon... February 18-20, 2025!

Registrations are open for exhibitors/sponsors and attendees.

Winter Resources Roundup

 

Whether we're ready or not, winter's here again. While we're bracing ourselves for some colder weather over the holiday season, it's good to review a few safety facts about this time of year.

Remember to always check https://travel.dot.nd.gov/ for road conditions prior to beginning travel, as well as weather forecasts that might alert you to upcoming winter weather. For traveling out of state, https://www.safetravelusa.com/ will allow you to view every state's road conditions.

You might want to consider reviewing some of our previous posts about winter as well:

• To review winter driving techniques and winter car kits: https://ttsafety.blogspot.com/2023/10/winters-here-how-do-we-do-this-again.html
• Brush up on how winter affects your health: https://ttsafety.blogspot.com/2024/02/winter-and-your-health.html
• Space heater safety: https://ttsafety.blogspot.com/2023/10/keeping-warm-and-safe-space-heater.html
• Generator safety: https://ttsafety.blogspot.com/2023/11/less-discussed-winter-hazard-generator.html
  

Stay safe out there!