We recently participated in an electrical safety survey with a local university. I was surprised to learn that 57% of employees working at companies with robust NFPA 70E based electrical safety programs saw tangible electrical safety improvements. 79% of these companies trained their workers on electrical safety at least once a year or more. These respondents attributed this to the following:

Training........................................................ 66.2%
Incident Energy Management.......................... 23.5%
Program Controls........................................... 20.1%
Engineering Controls...................................... 10.3%
Reduced Arc Flash Potential............................ 41.3%
Permanent Electrical Safety Devices (PESDs)... 26.5%
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)............... 57.8%
Better Overall Safety Culture.......................... 46.2%

The result of companies implementing engineering controls in their electrical safety programs is that workers feel confidently safer while performing their work. Safer workers are more productive. The engineering controls listed below remove or significantly reduce the worker’s direct exposure to electrical energy—shock and arc flash energy. Except for remote disconnects, workers have very high confidence with properly deployed engineering controls. However, the workers included below are trained (79% as per above) to correctly understand how to properly use these engineering controls to reduce their risk.

--------------------------------------------------Confidence Level (By Percentage)
Safety Device-----------------------Not Confident----Somewhat Confident---Confident
______________________________________________________________________
Voltage Presence Indicators-------------2.3------------------21.1-------------------76.7
Impedance Protected Test Points-------0--------------------20.0-------------------80.0
Voltage Portals----------------------------0--------------------13.9-------------------86.1
Non-contact Measurement Devices-----1.3------------------17.1-------------------81.6
Remote Racking--------------------------0--------------------14.5-------------------85.5
Remote Disconnects----------------------2.1------------------20.2--------------------3.8
None of the Above-----------------------15.4-----------------23.1-------------------41.0


Lastly, 96.5% electricians of all ages and experience are confident in using their multi-meter in creating an electrically safe work condition.

There is a lot more data from this survey. Let me know if this survey data would be helpful to for anyone involved in electrical safety.

With regard to the risk reduction devices, was there are prescreening question...as in do you have/use X, how confident are you in your employees' use of the device?

Otherwise the results would get ambiguous because if for instance a site doesn't use that particular device, they might answer negative (not confident) since there is no exposure/training or else "confident" as in...yeah, if we had them.

I can send you a copy of the complete survey report is you would like. Send me an email at philallen@grace-eng.com