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Campbell Institute: Train Workers on Visual Literacy to Spot Hazards

March 6, 2019
Pilot study reports how Cummins Inc. has trained employees on visual literacy principles.

New findings show that workers are able to spot workplace hazards more accurately when they are trained on the concepts of visual literacy.

The Campbell Institute at the National Safety Council completed a study which examined how employees at companies such as Cummins Inc. have been able to identify otherwise unnoticed hazards after training.

“About 90% of the information people consume is visual,” said John Dony, Campbell Institute director, in a statement. “Taking in that much visual data can lead us to have inattentional blindness – only seeing what we deem important to see but being blind to many other details, like potential hazards. That’s why training workers to better see where those hazards might exist is crucial to workplace health and safety.”

According to A Second Look: Update on Visual Literacy, employees who have received the visual literacy training have identified new types of hazards by using the elements and process of visual literacy, which has led to improvements and fixes in their work environments.

Within three months after training at Cummins Inc. was completed, 132 issues were identified and 25 new hazards were corrected.

There also appears to be an increase in the number of proactive hazard and near-miss reports after the delivery of visual literacy training. Workers also are showing a heightened risk perception and lower risk tolerance.

The Campbell Institute has partnered with the Center of Visual Expertise (COVE) to provide the train-the-trainer workshops for institute members in the pilot project.

To continue with the evaluation, the researchers at the Institute and COVE hope to receive more data on Job Safety Analyses (JSA) from all the project sites to test the hypothesis that visual literacy for hazard recognition can result in better quality JSAs.

COVE evaluations of the training workshops show that employers find this new concept of visual literacy to be very helpful.

Based on 55 evaluations, 95% would recommend the workshop to a colleague, and 100% have endorsed the relevance of visual literacy to the field of environment, health and safety.

About the Author

EHS Today Staff

EHS Today's editorial staff includes:

Dave Blanchard, Editor-in-Chief: During his career Dave has led the editorial management of many of Endeavor Business Media's best-known brands, including IndustryWeekEHS Today, Material Handling & LogisticsLogistics Today, Supply Chain Technology News, and Business Finance. In addition, he serves as senior content director of the annual Safety Leadership Conference. With over 30 years of B2B media experience, Dave literally wrote the book on supply chain management, Supply Chain Management Best Practices (John Wiley & Sons, 2021), which has been translated into several languages and is currently in its third edition. He is a frequent speaker and moderator at major trade shows and conferences, and has won numerous awards for writing and editing. He is a voting member of the jury of the Logistics Hall of Fame, and is a graduate of Northern Illinois University.

Adrienne Selko, Senior Editor: In addition to her roles with EHS Today and the Safety Leadership Conference, Adrienne is also a senior editor at IndustryWeek and has written about many topics, with her current focus on workforce development strategies. She is also a senior editor at Material Handling & Logistics. Previously she was in corporate communications at a medical manufacturing company as well as a large regional bank. She is the author of Do I Have to Wear Garlic Around My Neck?, which made the Cleveland Plain Dealer's best sellers list.

Nicole Stempak, Managing Editor:  Nicole Stempak is managing editor of EHS Today and conference content manager of the Safety Leadership Conference.

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