How Long Did You Stay on the Bus?

For a while now, I have been writing a little here and a little there. It is something that I kind of like to do, but I realize that I am not the writer I want to be. I want to engage my readers; I want them to feel what I feel, to see what I see. But then I realize, maybe it is my subject matter? Just the mear mention of the subject sends people to their hiding places. It's the dreaded subject that most individuals ignore, and most companies use it as a slogan to impress their customers. This subject is so cursed that only my 84-year-old mother comments on it when I post it on my Facebook company page, and I would almost bet she doesn't really read it. It's that parent thing! You know what I am talking about, that time in our lives when our children say, "look what I did." We just nod our heads and tell them it is excellent, while we are looking at our phones, tablets, or the television.

So, this is where most of you will hop off the virtual bus, realizing it was the wrong destination that you thought it was. The subject is safety! That dreadful word that most people cringe when they hear it. At this moment in time is when I wished people would read my articles! All I want are answers, answers to my questions! So let's roll out some questions.

Why do we cut out safety at work? I know most of you are probably getting a little hot under the collar because you think you are safe. Maybe some of you are, but I can tell you this, most are not. As soon as we are instructed to hurry up, we start taking short cuts. It is called normalization of deviance, a word that I did not makeup. According to Dr. Diane Vaughan, “normalization of deviance is defined as: The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable.” Right now, corporations face no real consequence for a worker getting injured. Sure their insurance rates may increase, but they will make that up with more products out the door. It sounds harsh, but this is what I see every day in the work field. As workers, you have protection, they are called OSHA, but they are horribly understaffed.

David Weil, Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, writes about this problem. In his article Why having fewer OSHA inspectors matters he goes into detail explaining how this shortage turns into our demise. How many of you realize that in 2018 5,250 workers died in 2018. According to the United States Department of Labor, “Federal OSHA is a small agency; with our state partners we have approximately 2,100 inspectors responsible for the health and safety of 130 million workers, employed at more than 8 million worksites around the nation — which translates to about one compliance officer for every 59,000 workers.” So if we look at that a little closer, we see that it would take several decades for OSHA to visit all 8 million worksites just once. It works out to be about a one percent chance that OSHA will be knocking at your door. So, statistically speaking, the numbers say they won't be visiting you soon. This is yet another example of how we find ourselves in that ever-dangerous phenomenon called normalization of deviance. There seems to be no consequence for our actions.

We continue to take short cuts because it has been ingrained in our psyche. We continuously think there is no other way! Oh, but there is. It is rather simple, and it doesn’t take all that much effort. Make your workers your number one priority! Put your workers before your profits. I understand that sounds like a lousy business choice, but it is not. It is your workers that are making your company profitable, think of how much more profit you will make if your workers feel appreciated. When workers feel like they are part of a company and not just a number, morale goes up. When morale goes up, so does productivity and quality. When productivity and quality goes up, so does profitability. Again, it’s not hard; it’s a choice.

We have fallen into becoming reactive and not proactive. We wait, hoping nothing will happen, we don’t address the problem until we have to. Right now, It takes an accident before we do something about it. We have become complacent, and we look at everything with blinders on. We continually tell ourselves, it has to be done this way, or we have always done it this way. Until we put our workers before our profits, nothing will change. We all have to make a choice, what one will you make?