William Tomlin

William Tomlin -- USF SafetyFlorida Health Leader

William is a consummate teacher. While he’s consulting with you, you’re learning. He can turn your worksite into a show-and-tell of best safety practices. His imaginative solutions to your safety problems will add to your employees’ productivity.

Talking Safety with William Tomlin
Taking the Bungee to Safety

Tomlin earned his master’s of science in industrial hygiene from the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Since then he has put together 15 years of air- and noise-sampling experience, including working for both construction and manufacturing employers as a safety manager. He has experience working with workers’ compensation insurers to minimize claim costs and has developed a behavior-based safety awards program. This brings us to the bungee.

Tomlin is always looking for what he calls “creative remediation.” He found an example of it being used by employees at a construction company. To satisfy the requirement for stable access ladders, the employees used two C-clamps and a bungee cord.
“When using a ladder with hollow ladder rungs, they ran the bungee cord through the rungs and then attached the protruding ends of the bungee cord to lip of the landing with C-clamps,” Tomlin said. “The C-clamps securely held the bungee cord to the edge of the landing. Of course the clamps could be unscrewed to easily move the ladder to another location before securing it again. When they used a ladder with solid rungs, the bungee cord was secured to the side rails and run just under a rung to prevent the bungee cord from being a tripping hazard.”

Bungee cords not creative remediation enough? Another example Tomlin collected is also one of the most inexpensive hazard reductions he’s found. He noticed an employee who stored his respirators in a large coffee can. It was an ordinary can with a re-sealable plastic lid, a perfect size to hold a half-mask respirator.

“This method met the requirement for sanitary storage of respirators,” Tomlin said. “Simple solutions are always the best.”

Support Your Supervisors
“One thing I always remind each employer is that the company must give its safety program teeth, said William Tomlin, University of South Florida SafetyFlorida consultant. “Management clearly states that work rules will be enforced. I advise them to set up a three-step disciplinary program. It begins with a verbal warning, moves to a written warning, and ends with termination. Also, management should issue a set of safety incident write-up forms to supervisors. With such forms, supervisors can document employee violations of work rules. If managers observe an employee breaking work rules, they should ask the employee’s supervisor to immediately write up the violation and make sure there is a consequence. Enforce work rules, and they will be followed!”