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Articles by Dan McLean
Unexpected insights from our Safety Shift report
Corporate Performance & ESG Future EHS skills are becoming more technology-driven as AI literacy, digital skills, and data analytics now rank ahead of many traditional competencies. AI adoption in EHS is far ahead of expectations, but trust remains a challenge – 51% worry about overreliance on AI instead of human judgment. Human expertise remains essential despite rapid digital transformation.
A Practical AI maturity model for EHS
Greater degrees of AI readiness see organizations increasingly trusting AI for predicting and preventing incidents through risk anticipation and insight generation. The most AI-ready organizations embed AI into daily workflows, using it to accelerate decisions, manage risk proactively, and achieve measurable EHS performance advantages. Less‑ready organizations mostly view AI as a back‑end data and reporting tool, with limited impact on real‑time decision‑making or frontline safety actions.
Now is the perfect time to boost your cyber resilience
As SMEs accumulate more and more data through supplying corporate partners Dan McLean – Country Manager for ANZ at Barracuda Networks – emphasises the need for them to introduce more robust cybersecurity measures The Australian economy is heavily dependent on SMEs, who play an essential role in the supply chains of many industries.
Dan McLean
Dan McLean is Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) at Barracuda Networks, a cybersecurity company providing complete protection against complex threats for all sized businesses. In this role, Dan is responsible for strengthening and expanding partner and customer relationships and growing Barracuda’s market presence across the ANZ region.
5 Biggest challenges in executing PSM strategies
This ‘Risk to Resilience’ five-part blog series explores key practices in process safety management (PSM), how organizations can address key challenges, improve PSM performance, and build safer working environments. Many process safety incidents are a result of risks that were apparent, but the knowledge of them was not shared with the right people at the right time. Every HAZOP, near-miss, and management-of-change (MoC) review generates valuable insights.
Australia’s cyber security landscape is changing - here's what businesses think Original
Recently, Barracuda hosted a round table with senior security leaders from Australian businesses across a wide range of industries, and a leading Forrester analyst, to explore the strategic priorities and practical challenges shaping organisational resilience, governance and innovation in the face of mounting cyber risk.
Integration is essential for PSM excellence
Safety managers and compliance officers face the dual challenge of ensuring employee safety while meeting extensive legal and regulatory requirements. For industries operating in high-risk environments, effective Process Safety Management (PSM) integration is both a legal imperative and a smart operational choice. PSM integration streamlines compliance efforts, reduces the likelihood of violations, and helps organizations stay ahead in a constantly changing regulatory landscape.
The 2025 Ultimate Guide to Breach Prevention
Breach Prevention is a critical area of focus for organisations aiming to safeguard their sensitive data, infrastructure, and systems from an increasing array of cyber threats. This category encompasses strategies, technologies, and best practices for identifying, mitigating, and responding to potential security breaches before they can cause damage. The recent stories tagged with Breach Prevention reveal how complex and evolving this landscape is.
The 2025 Ultimate Guide to Firewalls
Firewalls are a fundamental component of network security, serving as a first line of defense against cyber threats by controlling and monitoring incoming and outgoing network traffic. This tag encompasses extensive coverage of the latest developments, insights, and solutions related to firewalls, including next-generation firewalls, virtual firewalls, web application firewalls, and cloud-native firewall technologies.
The 2025 Ultimate Guide to Supply Chain
Supply chain management encompasses the intricate network of processes involved in producing and distributing goods and services, linking manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and retailers. In today's rapidly evolving business environment, supply chains face numerous challenges, including cybersecurity risks, sustainability expectations, and technological disruptions.
Control of Work is the foundation for managing workplace risk
For leaders in high-risk industries, ensuring the safety of workers isn’t just a priority. It’s a constant concern. Serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) remain the most pressing safety challenge, making effective prevention strategies a cornerstone of operational excellence. At the heart of this effort lies Control of Work (CoW) – a structured, system-driven approach to managing risks inherent in hazardous work environments.
Managing Third-Party ESG Risks Is a Must
ESG has emerged as a critical factor shaping an organization's reputation, investor relations, and long-term viability because of heightened corporate responsibility and growing environmental and social concerns. The demand for ethical and sustainable practices is driving businesses to prioritize ESG performance. ESG is now a foundational part of many modern organizations and a critical component of value propositions to stakeholders, partners, and clients.
Tips to Minimize Repeat Workplace Incidents
Achieving zero injuries and fatalities in the workplace requires understanding of why an organization continues to experience incidents, particularly those with similar causes and consequences. Many remain reactive in their efforts to identify hazards and manage incidents, but they may be focusing too narrowly on lagging indicators that measure safety influence on incidents after they happen.
Sports - August 31
Elmvale Legion Spitfires First Place Trophy And The Playoff Championship Trophy Sept. 16, 2023 – Congratulations to the Elmvale Legion Spitfires for taking the regular season first place trophy and the playoff championship trophy. The final playoff game was a tough challenge against the Phelpston Cougars , however the Spitfire came out victorious. It was a great year for the League and everyone is looking forward to next Season.
ESG Makes a Stronger Business Case for EHS Concerns
By: Dan McLean, Contributor As businesses show more interest in aligning with the principles of environment, social and governance (ESG), there’s an obvious overlap in concerns between EHS and ESG, and the one will most definitely help the other.
Worker Engagement in Safety Management Systems Improves Safety Culture and EHS Performance
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may have said it best. “To be effective, any safety and health program needs the meaningful participation of workers and their representatives. Workers have much to gain from a successful program and the most to lose if the program fails,” they say. But as many safety professionals can attest, employee engagement is easier said than done.
Should You Be Contesting That OSHA Citation?
Going down the road of litigation isn’t always the right path to take when your organization is on the receiving end of an OSHA citation. Your company has just been cited for a safety violation or workplace incident by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). What should you do now?
Popular Reads - The Top 10 Intelex Blog Posts From 2022
A look back on Intelex blog posts from 2022 reveals a full gamut of environment, health and safety (EHS) topics: from long-standing challenges and proactive strategies to improve safety performance to the exploration of new ideas, technologies and emerging opportunities.
Blog: Looking Back on 2022 – EHS and ESG Make the Connection | Intelex Blog
Concerns and connections between environment, health and safety (EHS) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) were dominant topics of interest for readers of Intelex’s online resources in 2022. Visitors to intelex.com during this past year most often download reports and research on EHS and ESG, particularly insights that explored important links between the two practices.
Batteries and Charging Stations Stall the Future of Electric Vehicles
A million chargers for electric vehicles or EVs will be needed along U.S. roadways by 2035, when automakers shift away from manufacturing internal combustion engine passenger vehicles. Growing popularity and excitement around electric-powered vehicles or EVs point to a major shift for future transportation across the United States. But the road ahead will be challenging.
Great Ideas to Ignite Your Organization’s EHS Passion
Post navigation ← Previous |  Next → Back to Blog Seasoned safety pros and newly-appointed novices can benefit from these great tips for becoming a better EHS leader. William Gibson, a safety specialist for Ohio-based Del-Co Water Company Inc., admits he’s far from being the most seasoned environment, health and safety (EHS) professional.
ESG’s Growing Importance Will Draw Upon EHS Leadership
Survey results show intrinsic links between the two practices of ESG and EHS with both areas sharing many common concerns and similar objectives. The role played by environment, health and safety (EHS) in the development and execution of environmental social and governance (ESG) strategies may depend on who you ask.
Research Reveals Collection and Quality as Top EHS and ESG Data Challenges
Organizations are challenged in their efforts to gather EHS and ESG data and poor data quality hinders their ability to improve EHS and ESG performance. The ability to collect data and be assured it is of high-quality are essential to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) reporting and compliance success, according to speakers at a webinar outlining recent North American ESG and environment, health and safety (EHS) research.
Skilled and Experienced or a Proven Leader - What Type of Safety Manager Would You Hire?
Here’s one professional who says a true safety leader shows commitment to excellence, a strong work ethic and personal accountability. Skill and experience are things you can teach. When he was hired 12 years ago, Bill D’Amico wasn’t what most might have considered the predictable and obvious choice as global director of safety and health for pipe-joint manufacturer Victaulic Company of Pennsylvania.
Close Calls and Near Misses Target a Safety Improvement Bullseye
By tracking and analyzing safety close calls and near misses today, organizations are better able to reduce tomorrow’s incidents that might cause injuries as a result of workplace hazards. American industrial safety pioneer Herbert Heinrich long ago did the math regarding the importance of reporting and tracking of near-miss and close-call incidents.
A Thanksgiving Wish for Greater Employee Wellness and Engagement in EHS
Post navigation ← Previous Back to Blog Workers need to do their part and workplace safety needs to be “owned” by every employee. We want to send out a big “thank you” on this Canadian Thanksgiving Day to EHS professionals who champion the cause of worker wellness and workplace safety. Every worker who returns home safely at the end of a shift likely have an EHS professional to thank for proper training, regulatory compliance, employee engagement, safety protocols and maintaining a safe workplace.
Know the Warning Signs of Workplace Violence and Bullying
Post navigation ← Previous Back to Blog Workplace bullying could be an alert to a potential problem and by acting on it you may avert a workplace violence incident. Acts of violence in the workplace are the third-leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) reported in 2019 a total of 5,333 workplace injuries, which included 761 cases of intentional injury by another person.
Is Your Organization Prepared for an OSHA Inspection?
OSHA expects to complete approximately 31,400 inspections in 2022, rebounding to pre-pandemic levels. Will you be ready if an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspector comes calling? In 2021, OSHA conducted 24,333 inspections, including 13,749 unprogrammed inspections, which were prompted by employee complaints, injuries, fatalities and referrals.
Safety Management Systems Paint a Bigger EHS Performance Picture
Integrated safety management systems offer a centralized means of tapping into safety processes, training status, compliance requirements, hazard data and incidents to provide up-to-the-minute, accurate data that identifies important trends and monitors incidents. A safety management system or SMS is an environmental, health and safety (EHS) software solution that no organization today should be without.
EHS Will Guide Future ESG Success for Many Organizations
EHS Will Guide Future ESG Success for Many Organizations EHS records and reporting provide a baseline for an ESG program. Ever-growing interest by financial investors and consumers in companies that do the right things for people and the planet is great news for environmental health and safety (EHS) concerns. What does one have to do with the other? EHS has long been positioned as a cost-avoidance function to protect company profits through protection programming.
What is Incident Management in Safety? (And How Does It help Your OSHA Recordkeeping?)
Incident management, the process of identifying, documenting, responding to and eliminating workplace injuries and illnesses, is a fundamental obligation for many employers. An important aspect of incident management in safety is OSHA recordkeeping and determining what incidents should be tracked and what data needs to be collected and reported to regulators can be confusing. Say you reported to your manager that you had a headache.
Look for the “Believers” to Evangelize Your Safety Culture
Safety cultures should be created by employees for each other – empowered, invested and supported by the company – as opposed to forced down and then begrudgingly adopted or ignored. That’s the view of Neil Bedwell, a council member of Forbes magazine who heads up a consultancy that focuses on culture called Local Industries, based in Atlanta. Employees represent the most important stakeholders in any workplace initiative, he says.
EHS Software and Technologies Help Businesses Keep Pace with Transforming Work
The speed and the pace of work is creating new challenges and opportunities for health and safety in the massive volumes of data that can be captured by EHS management systems and how it can be used to improve performance. Technology is the driving force behind workplace transformations and will be the engine powering environmental health and safety or EHS management to ensure it keeps pace with the ever-changing and increased speed of work.
Is an EHS Management and Sustainability Approach Right for Your Business?
Keeping workers protected and workplaces safe needs the commitment and involvement of all divisions within a business. It also requires an integrated approach to what might be described as EHS&S or environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability. One that includes: Steps to define and prepare for risk, Aligns a stronger and safer workplace culture, Maps EHS and sustainability goals and objectives, and, Consolidates for consistency across all business segments.
EHS ROI Should Be the Endgame, Rather than the Start of Your Investment Pitch
The inherent value of occupational health and safety (OHS) for every business and organization makes it seem unimaginable that anyone would argue the importance or necessity of protecting workers on the job. So why can it be so difficult to obtain additional and necessary investment to improve safety performance? Perhaps the answer lies in the capitalist axiom that business is business, after all, and any investment made must be measured by a resulting payback.
Do Your Employees Have a Stake in Health and Safety?
Encouraging employees to be legitimate stakeholders in occupational health and safety is really a matter of listening, being open to and dealing with employees as equal partners in developing and implementing programs. The greatest error in trying to create a safety culture is leaving everything in the hands of health and safety professionals, says Intelex Vice President and Global Practice Leader for Safety and Health Scott Gaddis.
More Work and More Tech Needed to Take EHS to the Next Level of Success
The COVID-19 pandemic placed EHS in the spotlight and has tasked professionals to do more than ever in managing risks within and outside of traditional workspace confines. The future of environment, health and safety will see the need for more technology adoption by organizations as EHS professionals take on much greater workloads and a role in total worker wellness largely due to the outfall of COVID-19.
OSHA Recordkeeping: An Overview of the Rules
Injury and illness data collected and reported by employers must be uniform and accurate, assuring statistical data consistency and validity. Many employers in the United States are obliged to document workplace injuries and illnesses under OSHA’s Recordkeeping Rule. While this document doesn’t need to be submitted to OSHA unless requested, organizations and businesses subject to the recordkeeping rule must produce these documents when requested make them available during inspections.
What You Need to Know: The Four Key Steps When Performing a Job Safety Analysis (JSA)
In a job safety analysis, each basic step of a job is determined, potential hazards are identified in each step and recommendations are made for the safest way to perform it. A job safety analysis (JSA) or job hazard analysis (JHA) are generally interchangeable terms used to describe plans that define and outline how to control hazards associated with certain processes, jobs, or procedures. JSAs incorporate health and safety principles and practices into a task or job.
EHS Software Solves a Need for Speed for This Construction Company
Moss went searching for a health and safety management system and settled on the Intelex Health and Safety Management platform to bring all its data from various processes into a centralized database, including incident reporting, inspections, behavioral-based observations, recorded near misses, good catches and even safety suggestions. Fast growing companies often find themselves needing a high-performance approach to environmental health and safety (EHS).
Incident Management: Is Your OSHA Recordkeeping Capturing Every Recordable Incident?
Goals and key performance indicators hinging on the number of incidents, recordables, days away and other factors are usually put in place to help drive a focus to safety, but the good intention can lead to unintended and undesired consequences, such as underreporting of injuries. Employers in private industry reported 2.7 million non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses to the U.S. Department of Labor in 2020 as part of OSHA recordkeeping reporting. That’s a lot of paperwork.
Key Lessons Learned during COVID-19 and the Way Forward
Throughout the pandemic, tried and tested foundational public health measures have been effective and helped to curb the spread of COVID-19. A retrospective look at two-plus years of COVID-19 offers insightful lessons on how to manage challenging human factors in a pandemic, as well as understanding the nature of virus variants and the important value of vaccines.
Artificial Intelligence Stakes its Claim in EHS Management
ehsAI’s cloud-based platform applies NLP algorithms to interpret and extract EHS requirements from regulatory documents. This output can be exported into EHS software systems such as Intelex EHS Management Software to manage requirements and tasks and ensure timely execution.
Visual Literacy Helps Safety Professionals See the Bigger Picture
The visual lessons grounded in art education can make a difference in how much you see and how to interpret the meaning of it. This idea holds intriguing potential for safety hazard identification, where it’s easy to miss important details in all-too-familiar workplace surroundings. “Typically, it takes an incident to inform us that a hazard exists.
Visual Literacy Helps Safety Professionals See the Bigger Picture
Visual literacy is a new term that’s being applied to safety and hazardous situations at work. If workers see what they might otherwise miss, they’re apt to take action and improve their own personal safety as well as the safety of others. The visual lessons grounded in art education – known as visual literacy – can make a difference in how much you see and how to interpret the meaning of it.
Transformational Cultures and Leadership Lead to Engaged Workforces
The closer that business and safety leaders can move towards building transformational rather than transactional cultures, the greater the benefits to be seen in business and safety performance. A little bit of transformational thinking goes a long way towards engaging workers and building high-performance business and safety cultures.
OSHA’s Scrapped Emergency Temporary Standard Offers Best Practices for Employers
One ETS measure was a requirement that employees who are not fully vaccinated should be mandated to wear a face covering when indoors or occupying a vehicle with another person for work purposes. It may not be the law of the land, but there’s still great guidance and best practices to be applied from OSHA’s proposed Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) on COVID-19 for employers that was struck down by the United States Supreme Court in mid-January.
How to Survive an OSHA Inspection: Part 2
If OSHA comes knocking, be co-operative and responsive when the OSHA inspector arrives, but maintain control of the onsite safety inspection if possible. (Part 2 of this two-part blog post series explains what to expect during an OSHA on-site inspection, the rights a company has during an inspection and how to impose a level of control over how an inspection proceeds.
How to Survive an OSHA Inspection: Part 1
Big changes are in store for companies that are facing OSHA inspections. Be prepared before an OSHA inspector arrives by creating an action plan that assigns inspection-related activities and provides a checklist of things to consider. (This is Part 1 of a two-blog series explaining an expected course of OSHA inspections in 2022, the burden of proof required prior to an inspection, how to handle an informal complaint and what to do when an OSHA inspection happens.
It’s Time to End the Blame Game and Start a Just Safety Culture
It’s time for companies to build a just safety culture, where trust in workers is established, people feel safe to communicate their concerns and observations and are apt do the right things regardless of who is watching. It’s often said that accidents will happen, but in many workplaces there’s a tendency to blame someone for the mishap. It’s the kind of thinking that harms efforts to keep workers safe.
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