Are You 100% Yielding to Safety Off-work?

I had the opportunity to attend a meeting where a safety share started by questioning the team in the meeting. The question was: “who will confidently and honestly posit that he always yields to safety rules?” I realized there was a sudden silence and head turns, depicting each person was probing to find out if anyone would shoot up the hand to pride himself/herself of such a great feat achieved in life. Silence means consent and thus it was a portrayal of giving in to the question. Simply put, no one said he was always compliant with safety rules. What ran through my mind was that all have been overpowered by the question, and truly that was the reality. The questioner and the expectant respondents understood the question to refer to both safety at work and safety off-work.

The culture of taking safety outside the confines of work is doable but how many people who strictly conform to safety at work do so off-work? How many of us strictly integrate safety into our daily lives outside work? The answer is nearly a definite “None”. Taking safety personal and incorporating it into your daily safe decisions is what is required to be a safety leader. It is not only the preserve of a safety professional but operational leads, i.e. front-line supervision, management etc.

Recounting the question, I formed a mental picture of us driving our private vehicles, supervising or assigning a job at your residence to a workman who works at height that requires fall protection, or do some painting jobs that require some respiratory protection or do some drilling in your living room for wall hangs that require some hearing protection, or fix an electrical gadget that requires some positive de-energization, lockout, tag-out and confirmation of the de-energization. Can we boldly say we make such provisions at home for such workmen? The answer may be an emphatic "NO". Ponder over this and treat workmen who come to your home to do such jobs as you will treat them at work where your employer’s topmost value is safety. Similarly, you should work safely off-work as you will work in a safe manner at work.

In this part of the world, workmen who come to your home to do such jobs will be taken aback when you make such safe offers for their personal safety. They will see it as strange.

I recollect a contractor employee telling me that he comfortably worked with “Charlie Wotey” (a local parlance for flip-flop) at a construction industry. He has done that for so many years and nothing happened to him and he did not foresee any event happening. That is the culture of “it will not happen to me”.

Ponder over this and ask if you are 100% yielding to safety off-work. The day you answer in the affirmative, give yourself a thumb-up and give me a call for a pat on the back.