On December 30 a cargo train carrying crude oil derailed near the town of Casselton in North Dakota. The 18 car transport originated from one of America’s most prolific crude production areas, the Bakken fields, and was just the latest example of a series of fiery accidents involving crude oil transports. Last July’s derailment of a crude oil transport in Lac-Megantic, Canada killed 47 and brought world-wide attention to the issue of transportation safety.
These accidents do however, as horrific as they are, barely scratch the surface of workplace safety episodes that occur each year. In 2012, well over 2 million people were killed in occupational accidents worldwide. These accidents involved not only major transportation accidents and machine failures, but also simple human mishaps. As a consequence of this staggering number of annual fatalities, ensuring occupational safety and health in the workplace has become one of the foremost challenges for every major corporation. People on all continents suffer under dangerous and unhealthy working conditions and alleviating their workplace from avoidable dangers is one of the most direct ways of improving productivity and company morale. Accordingly, the task for employers must be to develop sustainable solutions that will help to prevent occupational accidents, occupational diseases and work-related health hazards long-term.
One measure that is becoming increasingly popular among corporations is the establishment of a company health and safety department that supervises safety guidelines and regulations and develops curricula for corporate health and safety training classes. It goes without saying that certain companies, such as energy or construction businesses, have traditionally been much more proactive about establishing employee training programs, but recently other sectors have begun to discover the value of increasing safety and decreasing the likelihood of production stops and workplace injuries.
EVS Translations is a translation company that specializes in providing expert language services for corporation with a global footprint. We focus on the translation of occupational safety instructions, health and safety manuals, brochures and training manuals.
