Does your work force influence Safety, or does Safety influence your work force?

It seems within some companies that the work force gives the direction of where your safety program is going, is this an intelligent choice, or even a rational one? If we step back and hear the age old complaint that a safety professional doesn’t know what it is like to have “hands on tools”, yet so many of us safety professionals actually do know because we’ve been there, we fall into that trap of discounting or disregarding what Safety’s job actually is. Which in a nut shell is to save lives first and foremost, followed up with saving limbs, eyes, fingers, toes, arms, well anything originally attached to the human body. And of course tools, materials and equipment is in the mix. Which also goes toward the secondary function of a safety professional, assisting with the bottom line or even the overhead costs.

So if your safety team is not in the driver’s seat of your safety program and it is being coerced, managed, and all be it, manipulated to suit the work force, is that a true safety program. Can the ones that need to be lead, lead the way? It seems we have put back into the words of not knowing what it is to have “hands on tools” when it comes to the tools of safety. Sure an electrician has probably accidentally welded a time or twenty, doesn’t make him or her the deciding factor when it comes to actually welding a proper weld. Pardon the sarcasm or just accept it, because the truth does come down to the right tool for the job as well as the right people for the job. To clarify, you wouldn’t want a proctologist to do an oral exam, right?

“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” – President Woodrow Wilson

When it comes to safety, and safety professionals, we need to ask who actually has the pulse of the company. Who has the inside knowledge, knows what is actually happening in real time with actual people, because looking good on paper is a fallacy in the real world of safety. Safety people are the voice of the people for the people and by the people. It needs to be realized at the upper levels of management that safety needs its own lane, to drive in that line, and have the proper pit crew that backs up and increases the performance as a team.

The thing to realize here is what we hear all the time, competence, and those authorized to use it. When it comes to safety, where do you stand with getting the job done? Do you attack everything with the upmost passion and perform at the highest levels? Or is eh, good enough, sometimes good for you and your co-workers? When you think about people who are competent, you are really dealing with three types of people: Those who see and knows what needs to happen, those who can make it happen, and those that can make it happen when it really needs to count. So when it come to our safety profession, where do you consistently perform? Are you someone that thinks and does the doers work and give sound advice, or do you get pushed to the back seat and only suggest direction to turn because you are not the driving force?

I encourage you to reevaluate, who is the driving force that influences your safety program. The leading indicators will come from your safety professionals, the lagging will always come from your work force. As I discussed in my other article Proactive vs. Reactive, please wait for that follow up on that article with insights of discussions with other safety professionals.

-         Ryan L. Rinehart