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BLR Founder Robert Brady Named to ISHN’s Power 101 List of Safety Industry Leaders

Robert L. Brady, Founder of BLR® – Business & Legal Resources has been honored by Industrial Safety and Hygiene News (ISHN) with inclusion to their annual Power 101 list. ISHN is the premier journal for safety and health professionals.

The magazine wrote: “Robert Brady is an attorney and CEO since 1977 of Business & Legal Resources, a subscription-based safety, enviro and HR interactive community and management services delivering daily, weekly and monthly compliance and professional info across multiple media platforms.”

To be included in the Power 101 list, Brady had to meet several criteria, including the ability to reach a national audience and create a community of professionals through conferences, seminars, and special interest groups, branded media products, websites, web forums, and other channels that enhance the safety profession.

The inclusion also reflects the magazine’s recognition of Bob’s “innovation and creativity — development of EHS-related research, theories, models, performance measures, communications products, and best practices.”

“I am extremely honored to be selected to the ISHN Power 101 list,” Brady said. “It’s the result of the hard work put in by a lot of smart and dedicated professionals at BLR who produce Safety Daily Advisor and Environmental Daily Advisor, our free electronic advisory services on the latest compliance management practices.”

Free Report for EHS Professionals: 2011-2012 EHS Salary Guide

The Environmental Daily Advisor^® announced today the release of a free white paper, 2011-2012 EHS Salary Guide, which will help EHS professionals evaluate if they are being paid a fair amount for the responsibilities they are shouldering. In addition, EHS managers can find the information to keep their departments competitive and efficient—paying the right amount to retain hard-to-fill positions but not overpaying on others.

This survey includes 2 years’ worth of data effective July 1, 2010 and July 1, 2011. Data are reported for 32 positions specific to the EHS field and allow you to analyze changes in salaries from year to year. Some of the positions included in this guide are nonexempt and some are exempt.

“EHS managers perform compliance tasks that are essential to keeping workers and the environment safe,” said Environmental Daily Advisor Editor Kelly Lagana. “But the economic recession of the past few years has really been rough on them. They’ve had to be successful at doing more with less. The 2011-2012 EHS Salary Guide is a comprehensive tool that will help them to decide if they, and their workers, are being paid fairly in this competitive market.”

Data for each job are reported at the national level in the aggregate and also by industry. In addition, data are provided for all 50 states where available. It will be available free of charge for a limited time only.

For instant access to this resource, courtesy of the Environmental Daily Advisor^®, go to http://envirodailyadvisor.blr.com/2011/12/2011-2012-ehs-salary-guide/.

BLR Announces Launch of Environmental Daily Advisor

BLR^® announced today the launch of its newest resource for EHS and environmental professionals: Environmental Daily Advisor. This free daily e-newsletter provides tips, news, and advice on EPA regulations, enforcement, inspections, training, and more.

EHS managers also can find specialized information via the new website, http://envirodailyadvisor.blr.com. Just a few of the topics covered are hazardous waste, spill prevention (SPCC), air and water laws, chemical regulation, and sustainability. Video interviews with industry experts show readers what to look for on the compliance front.

Environmental Daily Advisor is the fifth “Daily Advisor” created by Business & Legal Resources. HR Daily Advisor, Safety Daily Advisor, Compensation Daily Advisor, and California Employer Daily, already serve more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500, and reach 300,000+ subscribers each day. Environmental Daily Advisor editor Kelly Lagana sees the new resource as a way for EHS professionals to keep on top of constantly changing regulations, as well as gain valuable insight into the latest solutions for EHS management.

“In this political climate EHS managers don't have it easy,” said Lagana. “Not only do they need to know how to comply with EPA and state rules on a variety of topics, but also what regulations may be affecting their operations in the future. The Environmental Daily Advisor will help them do their job well by providing reliable tips, guidance, and answers on staying compliant with complicated environmental regulations.”

For more information about the Environmental Daily Advisor, please visit http://envirodailyadvisor.blr.com.

Radon Review: Learn About the Invisible Killer

January has been designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as National Radon Action Month. Here’s what you need to know about radon and health.
 
What are the hazards?
Radon is a naturally occurring gas. You can’t see, smell, or taste it. Outdoors, it’s harmlessly dispersed in the
air, but when it’s trapped inside a building, it becomes a health problem. If high levels of radon are trapped in your home, for example, it could make your whole family sick.
 
The main hazard of radon is lung cancer. According to the U.S. surgeon general, radon is responsible for an alarming number of new cases of lung cancer every year. Perhaps the greatest danger of all is that most people might have no knowledge of this hazard. Some may have never heard of radon, much less that it could be present in their homes and affect the health of their families.
 
What can you do about radon?
EPA and the surgeon general urge all Americans to protect their health by testing their homes for radon. Testing for high levels of radon is simple and inexpensive. Radon test kits that meet EPA requirements are available at local hardware stores and home improvement stores, and many kits cost less than $25. If the test indicates dangerous levels of radon in a home, prompt action should be taken to correct the problem. This generally requires the services of an experi- enced professional contractor.
 
How can you get more information about radon?
Visit www.epa.gov/radon/nram/public.html. You can also call the agency at 800-767-7236, or contact one of EPA’s regional offices (see the blue pages of your phone book). The EPA website provides a state-by-state list of radon information programs. Some states maintain lists of private contractors available in the state, and some states even have state-run mitigation programs. There are also privately run national radon programs listed on the EPA website that can provide information about radon mitigation and can recommend qualified contractors.

Reflections on Earth Day

Rivers on fire. Sobbing Native American chiefs. Litter. Gray skies beneath a beaming sun. The beautiful blue ball first seen and forever revered by our pioneer astronauts.

These are some of my memories growing up in pre-Earth Day America. Through environmental advocacy and industry efforts, the earth is actually a lot cleaner now, but some contend there is much room for improvement.

Earth Day is the time of year when everyone reflects about what they can do to make sure we hand down a cleaner more sustainable world. One of the hottest topics nowadays is energy efficiency. In the workplace, for employers, conserving energy is a natural way to reduce costs while acting ethically. For employees, conserving energy at work extends the commitment to the environment and conservation that many have already made in their personal lives.

To help celebrate the 40 anniversary of Earth Day, BLR is offering a free copy of the training powerpoint Saving Energy at Work and Beyond.

Click here for the free powerpoint Saving Energy at Work and Beyond.

A Helping Hand for Your Training Programs

We all know the importance of thoroughly training employees, whether it be in workplace safety issues or critical HR topics such as sexual harassment or discrimination. Now, to help you get the most out of your employee training program, BLR® has created "The Instant Trainer," a series of five free webinars specifically designed for trainers looking for best practices and solutions to the common problems that affect everyone's training efforts.

The program kicks off this Thursday, Feb. 25, with "Train the Trainer," a 1-hour session aimed at helping your organization's trainers understand how to assess, identify, and develop effective training.

The sessions will be conducted by Peggy Cretella, an editor and project manager with BLR who has developed various training products in print, electronic, video, and online format, and Patricia Trainor, a legal editor for BLR’s human resources and employment law publications who has years of experience representing employers and school districts in labor and employment matters. 

Be sure to mark your calendars for these invaluable training aids:

• 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25 -- Train the Trainer. Effective training of employees is essential in today’s workplace. Few people come to a job knowing exactly how to do it in a safe and responsible manner. For these reasons, effective training is more important than ever. But trainers themselves need to be trained, to increase their effectiveness and their comfort level with the job. This session will give you the tools to help you understand how to assess, identify, and develop effective training.
• 2 p.m. Thursday, March 4 -- Building the Best Training Program: Your One-Stop Learning. This exclusive webinar will show you how to create—and run—an effective learning program that motivates and trains your workforce to be the best in your industry. This guide is a one-stop training resource. Use it to help you become a trainer who makes learning an engaging and enjoyable experience for your trainees. Employees will look forward to learning new skills and reinforcing old ones, and managers will look forward to the increased profits that your well-trained workforce will produce.
• 2 p.m. Thursday, March 18 -- HR Training to Avoid Lawsuits, Audits, and Fines. We will walk you through how to develop a training plan for legal compliance, choose the most effective training techniques, and conduct an effective training session. Training topics include sexual harassment training, discrimination, and safety training. Our training experts will also address training for supervisors and new employees, and recommended ethics training.
• 2 p.m. Thursday, April 1 -- Does Your Safety Training Make the Grade? Self-Audit for A+. A lot of time and effort has probably gone into your company’s training program. What is the result? A+ or F or somewhere in between? During this session, BLR training experts will walk you through the critical areas of review to make sure you are driving the best training program you can. Once we’ve walked through each section of your program, we’ll help to identify the remedies and next steps for issues found along the way and provide you with the tools you need to improve even the most complete program.
• 2 p.m. Thursday, April 8 -- Tips for More-Effective Safety Training. Effective training is about more than just the course material. Engaging the audience requires smart choices about how to deliver your courses, encouraging participation, and how to most effectively follow up. In Tips for More Effective Safety Training, BLR training experts will walk you through identifying and implementing the critical supporting details to make your safety training program really stick.
  

Whether your a trainer, manager, or supervisor, and whether your field is human resource or environment, safety or health, these free 1-hour sessions will help you become the best trainer you can be. Go here for more information and to sign up for some or all of the presentations.

Passing the Carbon-Footprint Buck

You may want to think that greenhouse gas (GHG) worries and regulations are just for the big guys. Well, wishing and hoping does not make that true. While President Obama and his EPA are leaning on big corporations, the corporations are turning to their supply chains (yep, including you) to make their required GHG reductions a reality.

A recent report from the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project shows that large corporations are consistently integrating their GHG management strategies into their supply chains. Translation: the big companies will reduce their carbon footprint by making you reduce yours.

The CDP Supply Chain Report 2010 shows that while some suppliers are stepping up to the plate in reducing their carbon emissions. However, according to the report, suppliers in general will need to improve their efforts and capabilities quickly if they are to bridge the gap with the top-performing suppliers. Suppliers who factor sustainability and social costs into their operations and processes are infinitely more attractive to big corporations that are bearing the direct brunt of expanding government involvement in business.

HR.BLR.com Named Best Government Information Service

We're proud to announce that HR.BLR.com, BLR's compliance portal for human resources professionals, has been named the Best Online Government Information Service at the Software & Information Industry (SIIA) 25th annual CODiE Awards.

The award recognizes the online service that best utilizes information in the public domain whose primary services include legislative, regulatory and legal content; public record databases, and government reports and data.

BLR CMO Kathy Greenler Sexton and BLR CEO Bob Brady accept the CODiE awarded to HR.BLR.com Tuesday night.

Among the criteria the judges used to select the winner were:

• Ability to integrate into work flow
• Content relevance
• Customization or personalization
• Delivery options
• Depth of coverage
• Ease of use
• Features
• Overall design
• Search capabilities
• Timeliness

"This award means a great deal because SIIA is one of the preeminent trade organizations in our industry," said BLR founder and CEO Bob Brady. "Our editors work hard. They've worked for 30 years--and continue to work everyday--to put this content together. Technology really enables content and that's what this association is about. We're thrilled, and thank you for the award."

HR.BLR.com helps HR practitioners and business owners manage human resources and employment law issues and requirements. This on-demand, Web-based portal features national and state-specific compliance guidance on more than 200 topics, including discrimination, medical leave, sexual harassment, termination, and unions. The website also provides daily news and tips, community forums, a weekly newsletter, policy and salary applications, and hundreds of training tools such as ready-to-use forms, customizable company policies, and job descriptions.

Forty-eight products from 30 companies were selected as finalists in the content categories of the competition, selected from more than 100 nominations submitted by 65 companies.

"The CODiE Awards represent excellence in the software and digital information industries. By providing recognition of the best new technology products and services, SIIA proudly advances the important role participating companies play in the digital economy," sai SIIA President Ken Wasch. "CODiE Award winners are a testament to the power of technology to deliver innovative solutions to businesses and consumers. SIIA warmly congratulates all of the winners and nominees of the CODiE Awards, whose innovation is essential for continuing America's leadership in the global knowledge economy."   

HR.BLR.com's sister site, Enviro.BLR.com, was named a finalist in the Best Online Government Information Service category. Enviro.BLR.com delivers up-to-the-minute state and federal regulatory updates and news to environmental health and safety professionals to help them stay on top of ever-changing environmental rules and regulations. It's an on-demand, Web-based compliance portal that includes a complete library of regulatory proposals and requirements, prewritten sample plans, training tools, checklists, forms, and guidance documents, as well as BLR best practice white papers and reports.

This is not the first time BLR products have been honored by the SIIA. Last year, our Employee Training Center won the CODiE for Best Workforce Training Solution, and HR.BLR.com was named a finalist in the Best Online Government Information Service category.   

We're proud of this recognition because we've worked hard to make our compliance portals the "go to" resources for busy HR and EHS professionals. If you're not familiar with these products, we invite you to take a quick online tour, available on the home page of those websites.

Below: Bob Brady talks about what the award means for BLR.

BLR Beefs Up Online Training Resources

Just because you have a good thing, that doesn't mean you can't make it better.

Take the BLR® Employee Training Center (ETC), for example. Last year the ETC won the coveted CODiE Award for Best Workforce Training Solution from the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). But we didn't rest on our laurels, not even for a moment. We knew there were ways that we could make the training center an even more comprehensive and useful training tool for both new and seasoned training professionals.

So now we're proud to announce the new and improved Training.BLR.com, expanded in both breadth and depth. In addition to the core of more than 100 online, self-paced training courses, we now offer indispensable "train the trainer" articles on a dozen different topics, including:

• Construction Safety Training
• Employee Training
• Online Employee Training
• Online Safety Training
• OSHA Safety Training
• Safety Topics for Meetings and Talks
• Safety Training Certification
• Spanish Worker Training
• Workplace Training

and more. And we've also added a library of free white papers designed to make you (or your trainers) the best you can be. Among the critical training topics covered are:

• 50 Tips For More-Effective Safety Training (Vol. 1 & 2)
• Building the Best Training Program: Your One-Stop Learning Resource
• How to Choose an Effective EHS Training Program
• OSHA Construction Training Requirements
• Teaching OSHA Requirements to a Diverse Workforce
• Training Hispanic Workers Effectively

We're also expanding the areas covered in the training center. In addition to our HR-Employment and Workplace Safety Training libraries, we're now adding libraries of courses for Customer Service Training, Environmental Compliance Training, and California Sexual Harassment Prevention and Response.

The hallmark of ETC is still your ability to provide high-quality, compliant training for your employees without hiring expensive consultants or trainers, and without spending all of your time preparing and delivering the training. With only a few minutes’ setup, your organization can have a complete Web-based training program with professionally developed courses, employee testing capabilities, and systematic documentation of employee training sessions and scores. Among the ETC's popular features are:

• Unlimited, Web-Based Training
• Easy Set up and Customization
• Professionally Developed - Automatically Updated
• Two-Click Trainee Invitations
• Trainee Self-Registration
• Flexible Training Options
• Comprehensive Reporting Tools
• Recordkeeping
• LMS Compatibility

If you haven't yet visited the Employee Training Center, we invite you to stop by and view a quick demonstration. We think you'll find it worth your while.

BLR Compliance Portals Named CODiE Award Finalists

We know it's not good form to brag, but, as Dizzy Dean reportedly said, "It ain't braggin' if it's true."

And the truth is this: Two of BLR's compliance portal websites have been selected as finalists in the 25th Annual CODiE Awards, sponsored by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

HR.BLR.com was chosen as a finalist for the second consecutive year in the categories of Best Online Government Information Service and Best Solution Integrating Content into Workflow. Enviro.BLR.com was named a finalist in the category of Best Online Government Information Service. Forty-eight products from 30 companies were selected as finalists in the content categories of the competition, selected from more than 100 nominations submitted by 65 companies.

"This is the 25th year we have recognized excellence through the CODiE Awards program, and the 9th year we have offered awards in the content categories," said Ken Wasch, president of SIIA. "The competition is tough, as many companies are looking to make their products stand out from the competition. The innovations in the content industry shine through in the products selected as finalists, and we are very excited to see how the voting goes this year."

HR.BLR.com helps HR practitioners and business owners manage human resources and employment law issues and requirements. This on-demand, Web-based portal features national and state-specific compliance guidance on more than 200 topics, including discrimination, medical leave, sexual harassment, termination, and unions. The website also provides daily news and tips, community forums, a weekly newsletter, policy and salary applications, and hundreds of training tools such as ready-to-use forms, customizable company policies, and job descriptions.

Enviro.BLR.com delivers up-to-the-minute state and federal regulatory updates and news to environmental health and safety professionals to help them stay on top of ever-changing environmental rules and regulations. It's an on-demand, Web-based compliance portal that includes a complete library of regulatory proposals and requirements, prewritten sample plans, training tools, checklists, forms, and guidance documents, as well as BLR best practice white papers and reports.

Our founder and CEO, Bob Brady, said, "The selection of HR.BLR.com and Enviro.BLR.com as CODiE finalists by industry leaders reinforces the impact that our sites have on the professionals and organizations that use them. BLR is a leader in providing companies with expertly designed resources to streamline workflow, and to reduce the risk and cost involved in complying with state and federal employment, safety, and environmental rules and regulations."

This is not the first time BLR products have been honored the SIIA. In addition to HR.BLR.com's finalist selection last year, our Employee Training Center won the CODiE for Best Workforce Training Solution.

We're proud of this recognition—justifiably, we think—because we've worked hard to make these portals the "go to" resources for busy HR and EHS professionals. If you're not familiar with these products, we invite you to take a quick online tour and find out what all the buzz is about.