Greetings from Omaha, NE. I received a great post on my Facebook page a couple of weeks back. I responded to it in text format only on this podcast’s blog site. Subsequently, I’ve had a few requests to turn it into a recording. So, always happy to oblige that is what I’ll be doing for this week’s topic which I’m calling: Is Your Safety Focus Out Of Touch With Reality? As you listen to this recording, please reflect on what you are focusing on in safety and how it either helps or hurts your efforts to reach and sustain a level of excellence and create the ownership necessary for people to be safe, regardless of where they are in world.
Here is what I received on my Facebook page…
“I’m familiar with safety consultants. Some of my best friends are Safety Directors or Regional Safety Managers. I guess since I had a good buddy fall to his death on a project and witnessed three fatalities on another project I have developed some passion for doing the work right which also means safely. I’m always a little entertained by safety ignorance especially at the program level where you report the stupid things that produce metrics, but lets you fly under the wire so the managers don’t get all riled up. I’ve witnessed a safety professional ask a crane operator to wear his safety glasses while operating with a 80–foot long shaft cage being lowered into place not 4-feet from an operating emergency room. The whole time I’m striving for operational excellence I frequently witness some safety knuckle head locking horns with an hourly meathead over PPE or something that’s pretty insignificant. Please explain that culture if you can. I’m all ears.” - Todd
Great comment Todd and thank you! This is a common headache and I agree unfortunately many workers feel that safety is out of touch with the reality of the risks of the job. Some could argue it is because some safety professionals aren’t always familiar with the industry or the way that work is performed. Others unfortunately view safety professionals as the safety police rather than a resource to the job site superintendents or foremen to ensure the work can occur as safe as possible.
I often find there is good intention; the biggest issue I find is there is just not enough attention placed on really talking with the people who perform the work and truly understanding the inherent risks. Moreover many times the accident investigation following an event becomes a form filling process rather than truly understanding all the contributing factors and influencers. So with the best of intentions the engineering hierarchy of controls is used and thus Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) becomes a perceived easy fix. Realistically there are still some managers will only support easy to fix issues, or the easiest mitigation opportunity. Sometimes the easiest is not the most risk reducing.
Now consider that all risks cannot be removed in an organization. It is impossible to engineer all danger out so too often PPE becomes a focal point; moreover it is easiest to spot. Plus in some people’s minds it is an easy way to demonstrate that safety is important because it is being enforced. Rather than coaching for safety performance it is easier to manage for compliance. If we are truthful with ourselves we are all susceptible to that. We are hardwired in the brain to look for exception and manage that exception. Too often I’ve found an example of that is when someone asks why the requirement is necessary, the response is “because it is a rule”. Rather than explaining the rationale and allowing the workers to discovery learn how this minimizes exposure to risk if there is validity to the rule or discretional request. I’ve also seen examples where the individual enforcing the mandatory behavior, themselves doesn’t understand. When this happens safety becomes a joke. Management and supervision becomes aligned with the workers and the jokes on the safety person.
I work very hard to ensure safety isn’t driven by extrinsic motivators; it has to be intrinsic at all levels to reach excellence. When it is extrinsic, (pushed by someone to do something for safety that doesn’t make sense) safety becomes “because I have to” rather than “because I want to.” Additionally too often PPE policies are blanket responses to a single event or one person’s undesirable behavior. This often occurs because the ability or comfort level to coach for performance and give helpful feedback is nonexistent. After working at countless locations throughout the world, I’ve found it isn’t only some safety professionals who are guilty of this. It is often many other leaders that fall into this trap.
Regarding metrics, unfortunately we measure often because we have to rather than to gather insight. Thus we fall prey to measurement dysfunction. I agree that PPE is far, far too often the predominant focus of safety improvement. Rather than understanding the job, the risks and the experience of the people doing the work. WE need to involve them to help us collectively understand how to collaboratively improve safety at the job site and everywhere the people are. In other words, the tools in safety should not be solely requirement-based or reside in a gang box (construction site toolbox) at the jobsite. We have to be passionate about improving; otherwise the strong safety foundation we create will crumble under the pressure of other hypercompetitive operational priorities. I believe individual passion at all levels is the only thing that will truly sustain the foundation we work hard to create. Passion for safety cannot be forced upon an individual.
To get to the level of excellence, those of us trying to help improve safety can’t be only focusing on the easy to see opportunities like PPE; we have to go deeper in the organizational culture to understand the influencers and hidden risks that we miss, even with our own common sense and experience. We have to go to the people who know the jobs and risks best, the people doing the work. Even if we are passionate about improving safety and have had successes in the past, we can’t be naïve and only leverage only our viewpoint of risk. Sadly in the way we measure, assess and “manage” safety, we often can’t see the hidden things.
It is analogous to telling someone there is fish in the lake you used to fish in as a kid. Standing on the pier a disbelieving individual looks out across the surface and replies, “no there isn’t”. They then dip an empty bucket below the surface, retrieve it and stare at the bucket now full of lake water and reply, “see!”
Shawn M. Galloway
President and Chief Operating Officer
ProAct Safety, Inc.
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