Workplace Electrical Safety 101: Best Practices to Keep Your Team Safe

What is electrical safety in the workplace? There are lots of ways to practice being safe around electricity.

However, some ways are better and as people share them, everyone’s practices improve. When a big enough group comes together the practices become standards in the industry.

One of those groups is the United States’ standard called NFPA 70E: Electrical Safety for the Workplace. Another group in Canada used this standard to create their own called CSA Z462: Workplace Electrical Safety.

Both standards are a set of practices and guidelines aimed at preventing accidents and injuries that can occur due to electrical hazards. They are updated every three years with the next ones being the 2024 editions.

If you work in industry and don’t have access to a copy, you can purchase them here:

CSA Z462:21 | Product | CSA Group

NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace

 

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO IMPROVE ELECTRICAL SAFETY IN YOUR WORKPLACE [ACCESS NOW]

 

Electrical Safety Hazards in the Workplace

What are the electrical hazards present in your workplace?

Electrical shock and arc flash (burns) are the two hazards possible when working around electricity.

• Shock

For shock, as soon as you become exposed to live electrical circuits there is potential for a hazard.

The threshold for hazardous voltage is >30 VAC or >60 VDC, once exposed.

“Exposed — capable of being inadvertently touched or approached nearer than a safe distance by a person. This term is applied to electrical conductors or circuit parts that are not suitably guarded, isolated, or insulated.” - CSA Z462

Any time you open a piece of equipment and there are cables and conductors inside that aren’t ‘suitably guarded, isolated, or insulated’ you are exposed. You can also become exposed if a piece of equipment isn’t operating normally. For example, if the insulation on a cable deteriorates and becomes a hazard to touch.

The safe work practices in the standards NFPA 70E and CSA Z462 are designed to help avoid these situations.

• Arc Flash

For arc flash hazards, as soon you are within the arc flash boundary and the task being performed has a likelihood of starting an arcing fault, there is potential for receiving a hazardous burn.

The energy released in an arc flash is measured as thermal energy in cal/cm2. This is typically called the ‘incident energy’ and is always coupled with a working distance. The working distance is important, as there is more energy falling upon the same area the closer it is from the source.

The threshold for hazardous arc flash is >1.2 cal/cm2. This is the amount of energy needed for a 50% chance of receiving 2nd degree burns.

To determine the potential arc flash hazard for equipment locations likely to require work, you can perform an arc flash hazard study or use the table method for conservative estimates.

Arc Flash Hazard Study A Guide for Industry Leaders

The other aspect of deciding if an arc flash hazard is present is knowing whether the task you are doing is likely to start an arc flash or not.

“Likelihood of occurrence – of an arc flash incident increases when energized electrical conductors or circuit parts are exposed or when they are within equipment in a guarded or enclosed condition, if a person is interacting with the equipment in a manner that could cause an electric arc. An arc flash incident is not likely to occur under normal operating conditions when enclosed energized equipment has been properly installed and maintained.” - CSA Z462

How to Control Risk for Electrical Hazards in the Workplace?

All electrical work needs to have a risk assessment completed to look at the severity of the hazard and the likelihood of it occurring.

If there is risk and the job needs to be done, a control method must be selected. There are a range of options for electrical hazard control. The best control is to eliminate the hazard while the last resort is wearing personal protective equipment.

Here’s the hierarchy of risk control:

This hierarchy is an example of a safety-related work practice for controlling risk. It is used across multiple industries and for more than just electrical hazards!

Who Is Responsible for Electrical Safety in the Workplace?

Electrical Shock and Arc Flash are hazards all workers should be aware of. Who is responsible for knowing what’s hazardous is and what’s ‘likely’?

4.1.3.1 – Employer responsibility

• Establish, Document, and Implement…safety-related work practices and procedures in this standard.
• Provide workers with training in the employer’s safety-related work practices and procedures.

4.1.3.2 – Worker responsibility

• The worker shall comply with the safety-related work practices and procedures provided by the employer.

- CSA Z462:21

The employer is responsible for everything except making sure someone complies in each instance.

They are responsible for:

• Establishing safe work practices;
• Documenting safe work practices;
• Implementing safe work practices;
• Training safe work practices.

Electrical workers are responsible for applying the practices and staying safe by fighting off inattention and misinterpretation while performing work!

Discussions about responsibility show exactly why electrical safety is hard to get right.

That is what NFPA 70E and CSA Z462 are all about; providing safe work practices that help get everyone on the same page and increase clarity!

CSA Z462 Workplace Electrical Safety

What are some of the safe work practices in these standards?

The table of contents in CSA Z462 identifies the most important electrical safety practices in the workplace.

• Clauses 1-3 introduce the Scope, References, and Definitions, but then 4-6 get interesting!

Safety-related:

• Clause 4: Work practices,
• Clause 5: Maintenance requirements
• Clause 6: Special equipment.

We’re going to focus on Clause 4 - Safety-related work practices to get a better understanding.

These sub-headings in Clause 4 have several important topics in workplace electrical safety.

Here’s a comparison of some of the bigger topics with the number of pages written for each:

Z462 Section	Length	Safety Practice
4.1.7	4 pages	Electrical Safety Program
4.1.8	3 pages	Training
4.2.1	7 pages	Lockout
4.3.2	1 page	Energized Electrical Work Permit
4.3.4	3 pages	Shock Risk Assessment
4.3.5	6 pages	Arc Flash Risk Assessment
4.3.7	17 pages	Personal and other Protective Equipment (PPE)

There is a lot of packed in here!

Workplace Electrical Safety Checklist

To help unpack some of those pages and introduce you to some of the practices here’s a checklist to run through. This is simply the table of contents of Z462 – Clause 4.

Try checking your familiarity with electrically safe work practices and ask, have we:

• Established safe work practices;
• Documented safe work practices;
• Implemented safe work practices;
• Trained safe work practices.

CSA Z462:21 – Clause 4: Safety-related work practices

4.1 General requirements for electrical-safety-related work practices and procedures:

• Purpose
• Responsibility
  • Employer responsibility 
  • Worker responsibility 
• Electrical safety policy
• Electrically safe work condition
  • Energized work
• Electrical safety program
  • Inspection 
  • Condition of maintenance 
  • Awareness and self-discipline
  • Electrical safety program principals
  • Electrical safety program controls
  • Electrical safety program procedures
  • Risk assessment procedure
    • Elements of a risk assessment procedure 
    • Human Error 
    • Normal Equipment condition
    • Hierarchy of risk control methods
  • Job safety planning and job briefing
    • Job safety planning
    • Job briefing
    • Change in scope
  • Incident investigations
  • Lockout program and procedures 
  • Auditing
    • Electrical safety program audit
    • Field work audit 
    • Lockout program and procedure audit
    • Documentation
• Training
  • Electrical Safety Training 
  • Lockout procedure training
  • Emergency procedure training 
• Host and contract employers’ responsibilities
  • Host employer responsibilities
  • Contract employer responsibilities
• Electrical equipment 
• Test instruments and equipment
• Portable (cord-and-plug-connected) electrical equipment
• Ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) protection
• Overcurrent protection modification

4.2 Establishing an electrically safe work condition:

• Lockout program
• Lockout principals
• Lockout equipment
• Lockout procedures
• Process for establishing and verifying an electrically safe work condition
• Temporary protective grounding equipment

4.3 Work involving electrical hazards:

• Energized electrical work permit
• Shock risk assessment
  • Estimate of likelihood and severity 
  • Additional protective measures 
  • Documentation
  • Shock protection boundaries
  • Limited approach boundaries 
  • Restricted approach boundaries
• Arc flash risk assessment
  • Estimate of likelihood and severity 
  • Additional protective measures 
  • Documentation
  • Arc flash boundary
  • Arc flash PPE
  • Equipment labelling 
• Personal and other protective equipment
  • Care of equipment 
  • Personal protective equipment 
  • Other protective equipment 

What Is Workplace Electrical Safety Training?

Anyone operating or working on electrical equipment should have awareness training to recognize potential hazards. They should also have training on electrical risk controls and best practices.

Equipment operators and electrical workers should have electrical safety training at least every three years. This is what is recommended by CSA Z462, which lines up with the standard’s regular updates.

Outside of that three year schedule, once you notice a disturbance to the work you might also need a refresher on your electrical safety training.

Training triggers:

• Supervision or annual inspection indicate that the worker is not complying with safety-related work practices.
• New equipment or procedures might mean new safety-related work practices that the worker does not normally use.
• The worker needs to do safety-related work practice tasks that are performed less than once a year.

Leaf offers both half day operator and full day electrical worker safety training.

Electrical Safety Training Courses in Canada & the USA

If you are a maintenance manager, health & safety manager, or anyone who is responsible for employees working around electricity, this training also teaches helps you to understand those you work with.

However, if you need to document and manage those hazards with your team at work, you might want some guidance on establishing, documenting, and implementing safe work practices. This goes beyond the one-day training, and often involve discussions about your specific issues and procedures.

Leaf also offers Electrical Safety Program Accelerator sessions to discuss how to bridge the gap between what your electrical safety program says and how to implement it on a day-to-day basis.

Written Electrical Safety Program Development Services

Interested in the training or accelerator sessions but not quite sure if it’s for you? There are 2 ways we can help you:

• Learn even more about Electrical Safety Training from our industry experts by clicking here or by downloading our Free Ultimate Guide To Improve Electrical Safety In Your Workplace.​
• Don’t know where to start or don’t have time to read our free resources? Request a Free 15 minute call with an Electrical Safety Expert today by emailing jon.travis@leafelectricalsafety.com or by booking here -> Book Now

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