Safety is a Human Problem

A couple of weeks ago. I had the pleasure of being involved in a conference for engineers to talk about industry standards and conditions.?

As we discussed compliance and other safety measures, a few people were concerned about the one thing that they couldn’t control.?

Humans.?

As much as we make compliance standards for machinery down to the smallest parts, and we do have safety regulations for people as well, we can’t guarantee they are being followed all the time.?

So what do you do??

There are a few ways you can go about tackling this problem.?

You can try to create more safety equipment that lowers the risk for maintenance teams, designers, and everyone who works with machines as part of their job. We’ve made some great leaps and bounds in safety in recent years with many companies finding innovative ways to keep people safe.?

However, if the issue is with the people onsite, there’s no guarantee that they will adopt the new safety measures.?

You could bring in harsher penalties for those that break safety protocols. In the worst situations though, these people won’t be around so see any penalties. In essence safety and compliance are there to make sure people return home safely from work and we need to be doing better at getting that message across.?

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of work examining how teams work and the things we can do to build better teams. Funnily enough these are also the steps you can take to create safer teams and ensure each person leaves work at the end of the day.?

A few key points that might help you are:

1. Paying attention to your team. This may seem obvious but you need to remember that for the most part you won’t know what’s going on for someone unless you ask. Make it part of your team culture to confide in people when you’re having an off day so extra precautions can be taken. Whether that be taking along an extra person to complete a task so nothing gets missed, or just giving someone an extra 10 minutes on their lunch break to take a breather.?
2. Make sure your team are playing to their strengths. People are more likely to make mistakes when they don’t care about what they are doing. If you know different team members prefer specific tasks try to allocate those tasks to the person who enjoys them the most where possible. If people are interested and enjoy what they are doing they will want to keep doing it and do it properly. It also will raise team morale.?
3. Try to reduce overtime where possible. Fatigue is one of the biggest issues we see. When people are tired, they are more likely to rush jobs and make mistakes, particularly if they would rather be at home. Your team taking adequate breaks actually increases their productivity so as their leader try to ensure your team are taking their required breaks.?
4. Educate Your Team. The more educated your team are the more aware they will be of what safety procedures they need to follow and why. Fluid Power was once considered the black magic of engineering and many people still don’t know a whole lot about it, so when it fits the budget try to level up your team members and allow them to grow in both their knowledge and safety.?

This is an ongoing discussion and as always we are looking for new equipment that helps make us safer as well as improving the way our teams operate. If you have any thoughts on this issue we would love to hear them in the comments as we realise there are many ways? to approach this subject.?

We also want to encourage everyone to get involved with these conferences and industry conventions if you can. The more voices we have in these discussions the fuller a picture we can get of where the industry stands currently.?

As always, stay safe everyone and join us next week for another Fluid Power Friday.?