The SLAM (Stop…Look…Assess…Manage) technique reminds personnel to stop work if they think their health and safety is at risk. Safety awareness and safe behavior are not innate skills. These behaviors must be deliberately learned and specifically practiced to enhance personnel observation skills. Very often there is so much going on in a workplace that we become hyper-focused and simply miss the signs that a hazard is present with potentially significant injury consequences.
Immersive HazID training modules, in combination with techniques such as SLAM, allow for the reinforcement and practice of hazard identification and situational awareness in the working environment that an employee will be entering - BEFORE they enter that environment. Through immersion in VR, trainees engagement levels are heightened, leading to up to 90% better memory retention as compared to equivalent classroom based training sessions.
How to use the SLAM technique within HazID?
There are four stages to SLAM. Personnel should:
STOP:
Think through the task. In other words, engage your mind before your hands:
Is this a new task?
Has the task changed?
When was the last time I did this task?
Do I feel comfortable doing this task?
If not, do I need training?
LOOK:
Look before, during and after completion of the task. Always:
Inspect the work area for potential hazards, e.g. unsecured ladders, untidiness;
Identify the hazards for each step of the job/task; and
Evaluate what to do about them.
ASSESS:
Determine if you have the:
Knowledge
Skills
Training
Tools to do the task safely
Think about what else you need in order to perform the task safely. If you need help, ask for it. If you need training, do not perform the task until you have been trained to do so!
MANAGE:
Take the appropriate action to eliminate or minimize any hazards that make the risk unacceptable.
Ensure that the proper equipment is used and that it has been well maintained.
Take account of the task just completed.
Did anything unanticipated happen?
Address unplanned occurrences and plan for them in the future.
Share this information with other colleagues.
Using HazID, organisations are able to assess a trainee's competency in all four stages of the SLAM methodology. Through the implementation of well structured questions, in combination with HazID's analytics capability, safety officers and trainers are able to see which hazards a trainee missed and what critical controls they are unaware of - thereby allowing for proactive mitigation against potential safety incidents.
Contact us at HazID to learn more.
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