Safety First

Take no risk to stay safe?

I recently attended the annual Washington State Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference which offers two days of training and education, providing the latest tools, technologies and strategies for workplace safety and health. 

Health and Safety ‘gone mad’

It was extremely interesting and useful in many ways and it is heartening to see the improvements that are constantly being made to health and safety. I have heard many say that health and safety ‘has gone mad’, but I am a believer that the regulations are there to protect us, but where it sometimes has gone mad is because too often people add their own safety measures on top of the already stringent regulations and then blame the various health and safety organisations for the madness.

The presentations were excellent, offering great insight into safety and a vital encouragement for a safety culture. However, I left some presentations thinking there was room for more discussion and debate.  I want to focus on a couple of the presentations that I attended and offer a slightly different perspective. 

Supervising for safety

The first one was about supervising for safety, and the premise was that ‘eyes on’ supervision is critical. The argument is that when we are driving we will go above the speed limit, yet when we see a police car on the side of the road we will slow down and drive at or below the limit. We do this is because the law is watching us and we don't want to suffer the consequences of breaking the law. Therefore, if you are being watched, or someone is using ‘eyes on’ supervision, you won’t break the rules.

Eyes on supervision or trust?

I admit that when on the road, I will occasionally go above the speed limit. However, I do not do this blindly with no thought to the potentially dangerous consequences. I do however, conduct a thorough dynamic risk assessment, taking account the weather and road conditions, the number of other cars on the road and whether there are police or speed cameras before deciding that the benefits outweigh the risk of getting caught. Also, noting that speed limits came into effect at a time when cars could mostly only reach a maximum speed of 60 mph, I feel that 80 mph in a modern car is the equivalent of 40 mph in a somewhat older model.

Safety culture

I am not for one second advocating that we should be reckless at the work place and break the safety rules. But, at the same time, I personally feel that ‘eyes on’ supervision is way over the top. I prefer to instill a culture of safety in the workplace, and then entrust and empower the staff to ensure this is adhered to rather than have them feel they are being watched all the time which could lead to a feeling of lack of trust. Additionally, if a leader or manager does not have better things to do than watch staff, then I would suggest they are not doing their role correctly. 

Traffic lights situational thinking

The second premise was based on the traffic light of situational thinking. It was suggested that green is clear cut and means it can be done, red means it cannot be done, but the uncertainty produced by the yellow lights eventually result in errors or undesirable consequences, such as when the light turns yellow, we accelerate or try to brake hard, but we are uncertain of what we should do.

Red stop, green go?

Red and green lights we were told are clear cut. But I beg to differ. After being in the United States for a few months now, I am still coming to terms with being able to turn right on a red light. My thinking here is that it is not that clear cut. Again, as with the speeding analogy, on this red light, we are making a dynamic risk assessment, judging the conditions, and taking a calculated risk at turning right even though the light is red. Also, even though you have a green light and you are turning, at the same time there may be a green light for pedestrians to cross and you must stop for them. Not so clear cut after all.

Calculated Risk

Having rules, regulations and policies are vital to set the boundaries in the work place. However, trying to watch staff all the time to ensure they are within boundaries I think will be very inefficient at best and virtually impossible at worst. 

We must also consider calculated risk in certain workplaces. Trying to be risk averse, for example in the military, I think will be catastrophic and one could argue irresponsible to your soldiers. There must be risk in military training, otherwise are we preparing the soldier correctly for going into battle? This does not mean being reckless, merely that you can still incorporate risk, but it is calculated and can be within boundaries.

High cost versus calculated risk

Similarly, in an office environment, regulations state that there must be adequate escape lighting in case of fire or other emergencies. In an office of four people, do you need to spend thousands of dollars to upgrade the system, or will having a flash light at each desk for each person achieve the same aim?

Empower, trust and train.

I believe that staff will behave in accordance to the way they are being treated. Build a culture of trust, empowerment and instil an ethos of safety, and I truly believe that staff will respond accordingly and stay within boundaries.  Have somebody watching over them all the time will breakdown that empowerment and trust and they may stop thinking for themselves because there is someone there to tell them they are going wrong. Continuous development and safety training is key and this can be achieved in many ways to empower, build trust and change the culture to one of safety first.