Develop a Program for Dating Stored Chemicals | Safety Tips
Some chemicals have a short life expectancy. Others will remain good for a long time.
Ask Broad, Open-Ended Questions When Interviewing | Management Tips
When trying to find out about how a candidate thinks, it’s always best to start by asking very broad, open-ended questions.
Prepare for the Interview | Management Tips
Make sure you have an interruption-free, private space where you and the candidate can talk comfortably.
Use a Standard Application When Hiring | Management Tips
Make sure that every job applicant completes one of your standard applications – even if they have already sent you a full, lengthy resume.
Create Incentives for Safety Performance | Safety Tips
Everyone likes to receive a reward for good performance. It can be a merit raise, a promotion, or praise. Good performance deserves to be acknowledged and rewarded. Safety performance is no different. When it's done right, it should be recognized.
Five Steps for Dealing with Employee Complaints | Management Tips
When a complaint is made, the manager should follow these five steps.
Provide Adequate Supplies of Personal Protective Equipment | Safety Tips
Employers are responsible for providing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as safety glasses, goggles, face shields, gloves, lab coats, and bench top shields. Employees are responsible for using these devices.
Why You Should Be Open to Hearing Complaints | Management Tips
Accepted wisely, employees’ complaints can be useful tools a lab manager could use to improve and upgrade his work unit and keep his employees happy.
Staying Sane in an Insane Workplace | Management Tips
Faced with stress, is it even possible to stay calm, cool, and collected? To take it all in stride, function effectively, not lose sleep, and still handle problems successfully?
Require the Use of Appropriate Eye Protection at All Times in Labs, and Areas where Chemicals are Transported | Safety Tips
Appropriate eye protection is defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z-87.1 standard. The most current edition is 1989. The standard describes both the design and performance criteria for various devices and the type of device to be used for particular operations.
Five Reasons to Hold a Meeting | Management Tips
Before you hold your next meeting, be sure you and the others at the meeting know why it's being held. Meetings can drag on and feel like a waste of time if the goals are not clear to all in attendance.
Allocate a Portion of the Departmental Budget to Safety | Safety Tips
The establishment of a separate accounting line for safety and health related purchases is essential. This allows you to clearly track monies expended for this purpose.
7 Safety Training Guidelines | Safety Tips
Examine your current safety training model using the OSHA voluntary training guidelines.
Five Ideas to Increase Your Productivity at Work | Management Tips
Finding it hard to carve out time to get important things done? Checking email, people at your office door, unexpected meetings can all fill time but may not be getting you any closer to getting your own work done or to move ahead on projects.
Saying No to the Boss | Management Tips
If you’re the boss, you don’t necessarily want to hear the word “no.” If you have an issue or concern with a boss’s ideas, it’s not easy or may not be welcome to disagree. So is saying “no” taboo in the workplace?
3 Important Safety Questions | Safety Tips
To help answer these questions we suggest first taking a hard look at your facility’s safety record.
Getting it Right the Second Time | Management Tips
Repeating yourself and doing it using different methods of communication can enhance persuasion and buy-in.
Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor Decon Safety | Safety Tips
How could an employee become exposed to hydrogen peroxide using HPV systems? What can you do to prevent this from happening?
Are You a Manager or a Leader? | Management Tips
All leaders are managers but not all managers are leaders. Both managers and true leaders get things done through others, but managers do so by virtue of their specific position within their organizations, while true leaders— regardless of their official rank—do so by inspiring others. A real leader may occupy any position, from CEO of a large corporation, to first-line supervisor of a six-person work unit. The distinction is not in their official roles. It is in how they run their organizations. Managers focus on tasks; leaders focus on people.
Measuring Excessive Room Noise | Safety Tips
How do we evaluate room noise and what criteria should we be aiming below when designing facilities or making corrections?
The Myth of Work and Life Balance | Management Tips
No wonder a recent survey of North American employees found that 87 percent of respondents say their work/life balance is negatively affecting their health. If you’ve been killing yourself trying to achieve daily work/life balance, it may be a pipe dream.
Pros and Cons of Fume Hood Designs | Safety Tips
With average chemical fume hoods exhausting around 750 to 1000 cubic feet per minute of conditioned air, you can see how hoods put a large load on a laboratory’s HVAC system and thus impact the operational costs.
Three Ways to Say No Without Saying No | Management Tips
We’ve all been there. A team member comes up to you with a “great idea.” Sometimes the idea is good, but maybe not great. Sometimes the idea has little merit. How do you respond in these situations without deflating the energies and passion of your team?
How Much Does Your Employee Turnover Cost? | Management Tips
Finding and keeping good employees can be a manager's biggest challenge. This online employee turnover calculator can help assess the financial damage that high turnover can create in an organization.
Four Tips for Conflict-Busting Conversations in the Workplace | Management Tips
The following tips will teach you how to turn your next meeting with conflicting employees into a productive conversation.