INJURIES HURT:
ARE WE TALKING TOO MUCH SAFETY?
By Carl Potter CSP, CMC and Deb Potter Ph.d, CMC
OVERLOADED AND OVERWHELMED
Lately we’ve heard people ask, “Are we talking about safety too much?” Our response may surprise you, “We don’t know, are you?” How much is too much?
It’s important to realize that a lot of employees and managers suffer from communications overload. Many companies seem to barrage employees with information about events, benefits, rules, regulations, projects, training, etc. etc.
Yet, when it comes to safety, the overload could be more of a social problem, than a corporate communication issue. With the war in the Middle East, political unrest in our capital, and life coming at us so fast, everyone may be a little overwhelmed. That’s why talking about safety effectively is more important than ever.
TALKING OF SAFETY
It never ceases to amaze us how many people want to talk about safety. Injuries are a concern for everyone and hit at our emotions. Injuries affect virtually everyone in the organization and at home. Nobody wants to see anyone hurt and nobody wants to get hurt. Everybody wants to be the one to fix the hurt! Whew!
Question: How can we talk about safety in such a way that everyone doesn’t get sick of hearing about it and therefore stop listening?
Answer: Stick to developing, maintaining, and improving the safety process.
It’s a simple answer for a complex issue, but think about what it means to focus on the safety process rather than on emotions. First, understand what the emotions of safety are.
THE EMOTIONS OF SAFETY
Far too often, safety is viewed as and dealt with in an emotional way. Management gets frustrated when injuries start happening and sooner or later they come out swinging “the safety hammer.” Pressure mounts and management steps up discipline (or corrective action).
Not too long ago, we ran into a colleague who is a safety director for a large company. An employee was fatally injured and two others had experienced serious injuries. The safety director had tried for years to get the attention of management about needed improvements without success. Now, everyone seems to be a safety expert; every executive has the answer – and none of their answers are the same. It’s mass confusion.
When this kind of situation emerges, everything becomes a mess. Finger pointing abounds and the people choose sides. Employees often begin to be fearful of retribution and decide not to report incidents or injuries. It’s important to diffuse the situation by focusing on the safety process.
THE PROCESS OF SAFETY
In order to maintain safety at a level that prevents injuries, we have to work on dealing with the emotional issues so that decisions to work safe become objective. It’s important to recognize that safety is both art and science and needs to be treated as such. The “art” is about dealing with people – establishing accountabilities, holding them responsible and building trust. The “science” of safety is about dealing with behavioral and technical processes. Hazard control is an example of a process that includes both behavioral and technical aspects.
The technical process of safety involves identifying the hazard, abating or controlling it, engineering so it no longer exists, or changing work processes to include use of protective or personal protective equipment.
When a hazard control has been established, practiced, and proven over time, workers and leaders accept it as normal and it becomes “common sense” safety. Yet historically, the changes had to become accepted – some after a longer period of time.
What would happen if workers in your organization listed the hazards they face every day, and identified and quickly adopted a solution without emotion? The ability of an organization to function without emotion and make correct decisions depends on the availability of internal leadership.
Here are three actions that can help workers and leaders discuss the “best practices” with regard to hazard control:
- Have every work team (usually no more that 20 people) meet and facilitate a session asking this question: What hazards does our team face each day that can cause an injury to people and equipment?
List these on the far left side of flip chart paper. Your work team could easily fill more than a dozen sheets. Next…
- Ask the team: What rules and safe work practices do we use to prevent injury to people and equipment? (If you have a company safety book use it for a resource)
Write the responses from team members next to the hazard. Make sure everyone participates and understands the controls. Then…
- Ask the team: Which of these controls can we agree that we will always do? I want to put a check mark beside them.
Most of the time the response will be “All of them!” Discuss this at length with the team and confirm that they understand that always using these controls will provide a 99.9% probability that, “nobody will get hurt.”
EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT MEANS A SAFE WORKPLACE
This kind of employee involvement will pay the highest safety dividend possible: elimination of injuries. While it involves a lot of discussion, it is the right kind of talk. Research shows that employees who challenge themselves individually and as a group will come up with difficult goals and will do what it takes to achieve their targets. Use this exercise to promote employees to create a workplace where nobody gets hurt.
Carl Potter, CSP, CMC and Deb Potter, PhD, CMC work with organizations that want to create an environment where nobody gets hurt. As advocates of a zero-injury workplace, they are safety speakers, authors, and consultants to industry. For information about their programs and products, see www.potterandassociates.com or contact them at Potter and Associates International, Inc. 800-259-6209 or carl@potterandassociates.com.