Do our artisans understand safety and if they do, why is it that what we have been doing is still not working?

Let us consider the following aspects and then ask this question at the end of the post.

Let us ask how many safety inductions has the average artisan attended in their working career?

If an average artisan of 10 years has been working in the Construction Industry, he would have attended at least 3 training sessions which included his contractor’s internal safety induction, the principal contractor’s induction, and the client’s induction per year.

So, for 10 years a total of 30 induction sessions ranging from 1 hour with some being a full 8-hour day.

If we take the median of these two and agree 4 hours of safety induction training, multiply it by three for each company and multiply this by 10 years, we end up with 120 hours of safety information and induction being shared with them over that period.

Then we look at 15 minutes for a safety toolbox talk shared each day with an average of 260 days, excluding Saturday and Sunday, with 17 regular holidays. If all falls on the weekdays, we have 242 working days.

So, we take 242 days to multiply this by 15 minutes and we have an additional 3630 hours, and taken over 10 years we have 36300 hours of safety information that is being shared.

We can do the same with the DSTI/JSA and Risk assessment, but I think you get the picture.

If an average artisan of 10 years has been exposed to over 36300 plus 120 hours, they have accumulated 36420 hours of safety information which excludes JSA/DSTI and Risk assessments.

If we divide this total by 8 hours for a working day and it gives us 4552 shifts or working days.

So, if our employees are exposed to such safety information then why is it that we continue to have accidents, we continue to have deviations, and nothing is improving through the years?

The answer is we keep on drilling the same information into our workers, but we are not focusing on how is the information being imparted to them, and when are they ever asked their opinions or just giving them an opportunity to share their experiences and allowing them to come up with their own suggestions.

How many of us safety leaders take the time to ask the artisans a few powerful questions relating to HSE?

How many of us just stop during our busy day, to ask them how their day was going and show true care?

Most of us would honestly answer not many of us do it or take the time out of our day that's the truth.

So let's try a different approach and give it a try and you will be surprised by the response you will get from the artisans and workers in general.

We have been doing the same thing in the same way with the same poor results.

We need to try something different now and let's see if this approach can have a different outcome as I believe it can.