In recognition of National Safety Month this June, Cintas Corporation has identified five activities to engage employees and help reinforce best safety practices. According to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), states with mandatory safety programs have fatality rates 30% lower than the national average.

“National Safety Month is a reminder to organizations that safety is a continuous improvement process,” said Jamie Samide, senior director of marketing, Cintas. “Workplaces can use these tips to host a safety awareness day, week, or month that is devoted to addressing employees’ attitudes and behaviors toward health and safety issues.”

The top activities for engaging employees during National Safety Month include:

1. Set a company goal for AED/CPR training: Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), a stoppage of the heart, causes an estimated 15 percent of workplace deaths. Employees who are well-trained in both CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use will be fully prepared to respond when SCA occurs. Set a company-wide goal to get a large percentage of workers certified and recognize those individuals who participate in the program by hosting a lunch or picnic. Enlist the help of a training provider and American Heart Association (AHA)-certified instructors to highlight proper AED use and CPR technique.
2. Fit employees for PPE: Since PPE is only fully effective when it fits correctly, and employees are more likely to wear it when it fits, National Safety Month events are a great opportunity to size employees for gloves, eyewear, hearing protection and protective apparel. PPE that fits properly will not inhibit movement or comfort, but will be tight enough to protect employees during daily activities. Set up fitting stations with several sizes and have a representative on duty who can maintain a log of employees’ sizes to make future ordering easier.
3. Host a safety contest: To keep employees focused and enthusiastic about safety, use contests and trivia to test employee knowledge about correct safety practices. For example, use an “identify what’s wrong with this picture” contest and have employees submit answers for prizes. To maintain engagement over time, launch a recognition program that rewards certain departments or individuals who have shown an exemplary dedication to workplace safety.
4. Test fire extinguisher skills: Pick a vendor that can be on-site during safety events to train employees on proper fire extinguisher technique using a fire simulator.  Then, test employees’ knowledge with oral quizzes and online training courses. In addition, make sure employees know where all extinguishers and exits are located throughout the facility so they can be fully prepared if a fire occurs.
5. Teach emergency response: A common misconception is that employees know how to properly respond in the event of an emergency. Use safety awareness events to teach employees proper response including evacuation protocol, first-aid techniques and how to call for help during an emergency. Assign stand-out employees to emergency response teams that can correctly handle chemical spills, fires, natural disasters and SCA.

“Teaching safety skills to employees doesn’t always have to be done through pamphlets or posters,” Samide added. “When employers think of innovative and engaging ways to raise awareness about workplace safety, everyone benefits.”

Cintas offers a variety of proactive and reactive safety solutions, from PPE and instructor-led training to first-aid cabinets and AED programs. For more information, please visit www.cintas.com/firstaidsafety.

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QWhat is the number one complaint you receive in your facilities concerning temperature comfort? How do you handle these?

Barry Epstein
Piedmont Service Group
Greensboro/Winston-Salem, NC

AThis is the big kahuna of FM issues. Actually, I call this one a myth because it’s impossible to satisfy. I have taken numerous surveys on our campus, and time and time again 50% of occupants say “too cold” and 50% say “too hot.” What is one to do about such a dilemma? FM is the job of managing facility related expectations. Following is a simple strategy to discuss with leadership for implementation.

1. Establish an agreed upon temperature parameter with a 2° swing of actual room temperature, not thermostat setting. For instance, aiming for a 74°F average means some areas may be 72°F while other areas may be 76°F.
2. Using a data logger type device, measure areas for which you consistently receive complaints.
3. If you cannot meet the agreed upon parameters with the built-in facility system, provide portable climate devices.
4. Educate occupants on how their clothing and physical condition can affect comfort in the facility. For instance, layered clothing enables flexibility, and depending on one’s physical condition (illness, hot flashes, stress, etc.) one can be too cold one day and too hot the next, even when the temperature inside the facility is constant.
5. If you cannot meet the parameters that are set with existing equipment, you may need to spend some money on your mechanical system to bring it in line with desired conditions. 

The post Tricks Of The Trade: Temperature Complaints appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

The AmeriCares warehouse in Stamford, CT, stocked with medicines and relief supplies.

Posted by Heidi Schwartz

As search and rescue operations continue after a massive EF-5 tornado shattered a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, a team of disaster relief experts from AmeriCares has deployed to the region to assess urgent needs and coordinate deliveries of emergency aid for victims of the heartbreaking disaster. The aid organization has reached out to health clinics, food banks, and nonprofit organizations in the region with offers of assistance.

“The early hours of an emergency are the most critical,” explained AmeriCares Vice President of Emergency Response, Garrett Ingoglia.  “We keep a stock of targeted medicines, family emergency kits and relief supplies on hand to help partner clinics in disaster-prone areas, so we are ready to respond quickly.”

The death toll continues to mount in the aftermath of the deadly twister, which flattened hundreds of homes and buildings, and damaged hundreds more, including an elementary school and a medical center. A state of emergency has been declared, the Oklahoma National Guard has been deployed.

AmeriCares is reaching out to its extensive network of free clinics and community health centers in Oklahoma along with shelters and other nonprofit organizations in the area to help injured and displaced victims with deliveries of acute and chronic care medicines and relief supplies. As an initial step, the organization is working with Nestlé Waters North America and Feeding America to bring bottled water to food banks in the region to support displaced people and first responders.

For more information, or to donate to AmeriCares U.S. Disaster Relief Fund, go to americares.org

The post AmeriCare: Assistance Being Sent To Oklahoma City Area appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

Photo: FirstChoiceWeather.com

Posted by Heidi Schwartz

June 1 is the official start to the Northeast’s Hurricane Season and according to meteorologists, 2013 is going to be far worse than 2012. The Weather Channel is predicting 16 named storms, nine of which are expected to become hurricanes, including five major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher).

With the average Hurricane Season typically having nine to 12 named storms, of which five to seven reach hurricane strength and one to three become major hurricanes, the numbers and resources for 2013 are clear indicators that facility managers need to heed this warning and prepare their businesses—now.

Bob Boyd, President & CEO of Agility Recovery, a former division of GE, offers facility managers the following Hurricane Season advice:

Before The Storm

• Ensure you have tested and activated your crisis communications plan prior to the storms approach. Even if the storm isn’t on a direct path to your location(s), activating this part of your plan will ensure reliable communications with your stakeholders.
• Backup all data on servers and personal computers, and ensure you are able to access and restore the data to a remote, alternate site without delay.
• Move vital records, equipment, supplies, and inventory to a safe or fortified location. Postpone any future deliveries or shipments until the storm passes and transportation routes are passable.
• Fill fuel tanks of generators and all company owned vehicles, and ensure employees are familiar with your emergency transportation plan for critical staff. Plan ahead for interruptions including curfews, law enforcement roadblocks, mass transit shut-downs, and impassable roads and bridges.
• Enable remote access to your company’s website and social media channels to ensure constant communication with stakeholders including clients and the media.  Contact the media ahead of time to ensure they know how to reach your leadership and spokespeople.

During The Storm

• Ensure employees are away from wind and flood hazards and know the company policy regarding inclement weather. Be sure to take into account the fact that coastal flooding and storm surge are the most destructive and deadly forces during a hurricane.
• Establish teams working on a 24-hour work schedule to monitor any equipment that must consistently remain on line.
• Preemptively shut off any unnecessary electrical switches to prevent surges or electrical shorts and accidents before the necessary checks are completed post landfall.

After The Storm

• Watch and listen to local news and online media channels for damage reports, transportation outages, lingering flooded areas, and other potential dangers prior to assessing your facilities.
• Establish and follow company policies for limiting access to your facilities until the area is has been declared officially safe by local law enforcement, inspectors, or company officials.
• Begin contacting employees, suppliers, critical partners, and other stakeholders to ensure their safety and ability to return to work.
• Begin salvage as soon as possible to prevent further damage to facilities, inventory, and assets. Begin work to restore any critical business functions that have been interrupted by the storm.

The Insurance Information Institute estimates that 15% to 40% of businesses fail following a natural disaster. Of the businesses that recover, on average, it takes about 11.5 days for them to become fully operational, which can cause significant revenue and customer loss.

The post The 2013 Hurricane Season Begins June 1 appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

Facility managers choose from a collection of standard color-coded medical alert messages or customized sliders in any color, symbol, or configuration. The messages are self-contained within 2/90′s modular sign system providing security, durability, and ease of maintenance. Messages can be displayed on one or both sides of the sign. Sign size is determined by the number of messages and the sign graphic needed.

The new VitalSign is available in a virtually endless array of sign options and message configurations. Room identification can be added for ADA compliancy. An erasable writing board with a template for handwritten information can also be incorporated. Facility managers can choose to use a standard template or integrate their organization’s brand in a custom design. Other options include a holder for markers or a SmartStrip to display laminated or paper messages.

VitalSign can be placed at patient bedsides for easy viewing of critical care information at the point of care. Or, the signs can be installed in corridors, with ADA compliant graphics to identify room locations. Window inserts with easily changeable laser-print graphics can be incorporated (as shown here) to promote brand or communicate additional information.

The modular nature of VitalSign provides healthcare facilities the ability to customize signage to fit their needs while maintaining aesthetic consistency throughout a space.

The post NEW PRODUCT FLASH: VitalSign By 2/90 Sign Systems appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

This Question of the Week comes from the Harvard Business Review group on LinkedIn. 

What do you do when an employee cries at work?

Divorce, death, illness—there are many reasons people might be sad that have nothing at all to do with work. As a manager, what is an appropriate, sensitive, professional response when someone cries?

Share your feedback and suggestions in the LEAVE A COMMENT section below.

The post QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Wiping Away Tears In The Workplace appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

Okay facility managers, this is going to blow your mind—the Escherian Stairwell. Located in Building 7 on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology, the stairwell was designed by Filipino architect Rafael Nelson Aboganda when the university moved from downtown Rochester to its current location in Henrietta.

Also known as Penrose steps (after the father/son team of Lionel and Roger Penrose), this impossible phenomenon is based on the idea “of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three dimensions.”

Or so it seems. Take a look:

Scott Bureau of RIT News writes, “Michael Lacanilao, a film and animation graduate student at RIT created the video series, ‘Can You Imagine,’ to highlight the many interesting facts, stories, and myths of RIT.

‘Four years can go by quickly, and a lot of us don’t have the time to learn about all the things that RIT does and offers,’ says Lacanilao. ‘When we take the time to venture outside our daily routines, we find that it really is the place where the left brain and right brain collide. I’m proud to be a part of that.’”

So what’s the secret? Is there a secret? Yes there is. And here it is.

The myth is still a myth. You can rest easier now. Oh, and when in doubt, always check Snopes.

The post FRIDAY FUNNY: An Escherian Starway Exists? appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

At first blush, it sounds like a simple project: paint a champagne colored stripe on the wall of a movie theater lobby. But as Jesse Truesdale will tell you, the devil is in the details. The owner of Cobb Theatres in Leesburg, VA tasked Truesdale with painting a 3” x 280’ ribbon of color 30’ above the ground on the wall of the theater lobby. This area included a large, open stairwell that takes theater patrons from the ground floor entrance to the second floor lobby—a decorative detail moviegoers will see as they stand at the top of the long staircase, face the opposing wall and turn in a complete circle. Truesdale, part owner, along with her husband Ben, of TrueBuilt, LLC, set out to make that stripe a reality on the theater wall.

A silver colored stripe (a change from the initial spec) accents a large wall in the theater lobby.

Truesdale likes a good challenge. Her company, a northern Virginia-based general contracting firm that provides construction and preconstruction services, tackles projects that other companies often turn down. “We have a real passion for building, and we look for those projects that present interesting challenges,” she says. “The theater in Leesburg turned out to be such a challenge—one that the JLG compact crawler boom proved instrumental in helping us overcome.”

As she studied the project, Truesdale realized her options were limited. “Leaning a ladder on the two staircase landings would not work, because the scale of the painting and the fact that the paint was being applied to a curved wall required that the painter be able to regularly step away from the wall and check the perspective.”

Scaffolding presented another option—a time-consuming and expensive option, which, like the ladder, would not provide painters with the necessary perspective and would have required the entire staircase be taken out of commission for the length of the project.

Truesdale also considered using equipment to help reach the wall, but the facility’s design is not conducive to moving equipment to the second floor. A small passenger elevator, located in a narrow corridor, and a freight elevator, located in a kitchen that offered little room to maneuver, could not handle heavy, bulky equipment. Removing windows to provide access to the second floor proved to be cost-prohibitive. And so, the search began for a compact piece of aerial equipment that could move up a ramp built on top of the middle portion of the three part staircase and provide access from the second floor, across the stairwell to the wall.

After renting a piece of equipment that appeared promising, Truesdale and her team discovered it was unable to maintain the angle necessary to climb the ramp, moving only 3′ up the structure before getting stuck. As luck would have it, a sales rep from another rental company visited the theater, noted the problem, and proposed the JLG X700AJ compact crawler boom as a solution.

“He had my attention at a critical moment, and after taking a look at the crawler boom, I was willing to give the machine a try,” recalls Truesdale. A week later, the crawler boom was on-site and performing to expectations.

“We were able to secure a battery operated model, which was a requirement, since I had no way of venting fumes to the outside,” she says. “And it made it up the entire ramp without any problems.”

Truesdale admits to being nervous to use the unfamiliar equipment. But, inspired by its ability to climb the stairs, she was optimistic about its performance. In fact, she and her crew quickly learned to use the crawler boom, which enabled painters to stand in the bucket, sketch the stripe in pencil using a 2’ x 2’ grid, and then paint it. The compact boom measures 39” across and has a horizontal reach of 37’. With a platform capacity of 440 pounds and an elevated height of 69’ 7”, it met the needs of the project.

“We found the crawler boom to be really, really versatile and at the same time, extremely stable,” says Truesdale. “Once you get used to it, which doesn’t take very long, the control panel is very accommodating and easy to use, and the machine itself is quite gentle. We always felt comfortable in it and able to maneuver into whatever position we needed to be in without bumping around or missing the mark. Despite the theater’s limited access, tight corners, and a variety of obstructions, including the bulkhead over the bar area, the crawler boom equipped us to get the job done.”

By the time she completed the project, Truesdale felt confident in her ability to use the crawler boom, which was a good thing, because after the work was completed, the ramp removed, and the boom returned, the theater owner decided to change the color of the stripe from champagne to silver. That meant securing the crawler boom a second time, rebuilding the ramp, and accomplishing in four nights what had taken the team three weeks of night work to complete the first time. “This time we did not have to create the grid, we knew exactly how to construct the ramp, and we could operate the crawler boom with confidence,” says Truesdale.

She also noted that the machine helped them accomplish a second task. “The theater owner asked us to build out a chandelier that hung above the stairwell, slightly lower than the stripe, and consisted of more than 300 glass pieces that needed to be hand tied to the chandelier’s frame. We tied 10 to 15 pieces in an hour’s time, carefully sorting the pieces on the floor, loading them into a box, and sending someone out in the crawler bucket to tie them.

Without the compact crawler boom, Truesdale is unsure how she would have completed this project. The positive experience, although daunting in the beginning, has made her eager to put the machine to use in another project. “From my experience, the crawler’s uses are unlimited,” she says. “I can see the value it would bring to projects in churches, theaters, auditoriums, gymnasiums—really any place that features peculiar or unusual spaces that are difficult to access—as well as more ordinary applications that require aerial work.”

The post WEB EXCLUSIVE: Painting Project at Leesburg Theater Earns Rave Reviews appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

Global FM is pleased to announce the fifth annual World FM Day to take place in just over a month on June 27, 2013. The core message of 2013′s World FM Day is “creating, sharing, and learning.”

Global FM leadership invites everyone to share their latest achievements and successes as a FM professional, as a team, company, or country. The goal this year is to use World FM Day as a platform to celebrate all the successes achieved by the FM professionals and industry around the world.

As in previous years, a communications support package is available for download at Global FM’s website, including the animated logo with the message celebrating success rotating in nine different languages; the World FM Day banner, email signature, power point presentation and other tools to help facility managers organize events on June 27th.

The World FM Day 2013 Google Map is also being populated with activities all over the world. Facility professionals are urged to make sure events are listed there, so everyone knows what will be happening World FM Day 2013.

Duncan Waddell, Chair of the World FM Day Taskforce and Global FM stated: “the importance of the of recognizing facilities management contribution to productivity, health, and safety in our built environment needs to be a key focus. The theme of creating, learning, sharing is perfect to ensure we place a spot light on the great work being undertaken in the industry.”

Facility professionals around the world are encouraged to join associations including the Associação Brasileira de Facilities (ABRAFAC), the Association des Directeurs de l’Environnement de Travail (ARSEG), The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), the European Facility Management Network (EuroFM), the Facility Management Association of Australia (FMA Australia), the Hungarian Facility Management Society (HFMS), the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), the Middle East Facility Management Association (MEFMA), the Facility Management Association of New Zealand (FMANZ) and the South African Facilities Management Association (SAFMA) in the different celebrations taking place in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa, the U.A.E. and in various countries throughout Europe.

The post World FM Day – 27 June 2013 – Creating, Sharing & Learning appeared first on Today's Facility Manager | The Source for Facility Solutions.

Posted by Heidi Schwartz

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has joined American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter (AIASF), in partnership with Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC), to announce the opening of the third annual Architecture at Zero competition for zero net energy (ZNE) building designs. ZNE buildings produce as much clean energy as they use during a year through a combination of designed energy efficiency and on-site, grid-tied renewable energy production.

The Architecture at Zero competition is open to all entrants, including designers, academics, researchers, and students. To help generate innovative ideas for zero net energy building designs, the Architecture at Zero competition will focus on the design of a zero net energy mixed-rate housing complex, including market rate and affordable housing, in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.

This is the third year that PG&E and AIASF have held the Architecture at Zero competition. Past competition sites have included University of California, Merced in 2012 and an urban infill site in Emeryville, CA. The competition supports an action plan of the California Public Utilities Commission for all new residential construction in California to be zero net energy by 2020. The goal for new commercial construction is to achieve zero net energy by 2030.

International experts will judge the entries and award up to $25,000 in total prizes in November. The deadline for entries is October 1, 2013.

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