Why Compliance Won't Get Us To Zero

In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. In other words, freedom of choice and freedom of thought are not required. All that is required is a simple adherence to the rules.

But can we take compliance in safety seriously? Yes, compliance got us to where we are in safety today. Yes, it was necessary to clean up the mess we were in. Yes, we had to give the employees a common standard across all industries so that they could adapt their behaviors equally in all workplaces. So there is no question that compliance was necessary -- for a time. The question remains, however, can compliance take us to where safety needs to go? Overwhelmingly, the evidence says no.

Compliance in the workplace is a standard of absolute minimums. It is the line in the sand we cannot cross. It is a bar that has been set so low as to be impossible to go under. In the same way that the construction industry has a building code (a set of standards that a builder must not fall below), and in the same way that governments have instituted minimum-wage requirements (another nice way of saying if I could pay you less I would), compliance was necessary to ensure that workplaces met minimum standards of safety and workers were protected even if it was the employer's choice not to do so.

Can the process that cleaned up our backyard, and got us to our current benchmark, can it be the same process that delivers us to the promised land of Zero? Times are different now. Worker education is different. Workplace processes are different. Worker protection is different, at least in the minimum-standard sort of way. Worker attitudes are for the most part different. And an entire industry has risen up built on a set of absolute minimum standards. Is this really the way we want to carry on -- achieving basic minimum standards?

I remember listening to the occasional Earl Nightingale recording on the radio in the early years of my life. That big, deep, basso profundo voice spoke like the voice of God. Mr. Nightingale, as I recall his words, encouraged me to hang out with successful people if I wanted to achieve success in my own life. If I, according to Nightingale, hung out with slackers and ne'er-do-wells that it was very likely I would become one. But if I were to hang out with successful people then the likelihood was greater that success would show up for me.

That same advice could be applied to an entire industry today. Compliance, for the most part, is the same as hanging out with the D-students: students who are just getting by but flirting with failure if they do just one or two things wrong.

Here is the problem as I see it. Until we start seeing CEOs attending the safety conferences, and not just sending their safety managers, safety will always be an arms-length part of any organization. The people who attend these conferences are the choir of the Church of safety. They already know it's important. It's the decision-makers that need to attend these conferences. It's the people who are in positions of power, who can affect change to the corporate culture of an organization. That's who should be attending these conferences. That's who should be meeting with safety managers. And until the entire team across the top of an organization embraces safety as a viable and necessary part of their organization, safety will always be an arms-length concern.

Corporate America treats safety as the dorky little brother they are forced to bring along when they want to hang out with the cool kids. But safety shouldn't be treated that way. Safety should be permeating the discussions in sales, finance, human resources, marketing, management and every other department. Safety should have an equal seat at the table of all decisions within an organization. We should be having the discussions around safety across all departments of all organizations. But we don't. Safety isn't readily visible, well at least not in the same way as Ireland and the UK. In those countries, you can purchase safety wear, high visibility clothing and some personal protective equipment and department stores - not from hidden specialty stores and industrial catalogues like we have here in North America.

The saying "out of sight, out of mind" really rings true in this regard. If we could readily purchase safety clothing and equipment in the same way we could buy power tools, wouldn't it stand to reason that we might be willing to accept safety more readily? If we could see it everywhere, it would likely be embraced more.

But because of its primarily industrial-focus, (with a few exceptions) safety is aimed squarely at the blue-collar worker who apparently has little capacity to think for himself. It's why we force blue-collar workers to pee into a cup, but turn a blind eye to the white-collar executive who has the two-martini power lunch and then drives back to the office. It's why we send a blue-collar worker home because they wore the wrong PPE yet continue the practice of sending executives off to exotic management retreats and allowing them to make cloudy-headed decisions on the future of the company, while suffering the ill effects of the open bar from the night before.

For the most part, safety takes a top-down philosophy. Those at the top, or at least those with letters behind their name, make the rules, procedures and processes for others to follow. And is it working? Not really. In fact, incident numbers are rising.

Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I learned a long time ago that if you keep doing what you've always done you're going to keep getting what you always got. Regardless of whether safety numbers have flatlined or are on the rise, something needs to change. The numbers are not heading in the right direction. That means, what we are doing has been useful in getting us to where we are, but it might be time to upgrade to a new vehicle -- something that can get us to where we need to go.

Maybe it's time we asked our young workers to come up with solutions to stem the rising numbers in their own age category. After all, presupposing that old safety managers can develop strategies that will resonate with younger workers sounds like a recipe for disaster. You can't develop full buy-in by thrusting rules and regulations upon your people. Making them feel as though you know what's best for them better than they do creates push-back. Blind compliance fails over time.

Expecting people to blindly follow because of someone's says-so doesn't make sense any more - especially as the workplace changes its age. Generation Y doesn't subscribe to a "because that's the rule" philosophy. They want to know why (hence the name Gen Y). They don't have the same propensity for blindly following as those who make the rules so if you want to get your organization to Zero, you had better start including them in the discussions. They have ideas. They have suggestions. Employees will embrace anything that they themselves had a hand in creating.

Without appealing to the hearts and minds of your workers, you create an us-versus-them adversarial relationship that too, will fail over time. Sure we need to have minimums (for those that would try to do less) but the focus shouldn't be on achieving minimums. We should be shooting for something far beyond minimums. Minimums are for the lazy.

Safety, as we know it, needs a facelift. Top-down may have worked for a while but maybe it's time for a grassroots-up strategy. Maybe it's time to begin to think more collaboratively -- to get everyone involved -- not just a select few who have managed to achieve some sort of certification. Safety is not a club -- it's an attitude.

If you seriously want to achieve Zero, you had better be prepared to give up your titles and your organizational hierarchy. There is no place for any of it in safety. Safety is something that should transcend position, power and place and consider all of your employees as equals. That's the only way it works in the future. You can't legislate conformity - which means compliance is on its last legs.


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The Future Of Safety Is Uncertain

Video games now outsell music and movie recordings combined. E-books now outsell traditional books meaning consumers can get what they want to read in an instant without leaving the bathtub to go to a store - and it's cheaper. Newspapers show up in your inbox or on your iPad (many are free for now) instead of being delivered to your doorstep for a monthly fee. You don't have to be home to get your morning paper.

Trips to the video store are a thing of the past as more retailers go out of business because Netflix let's you stream your movie to your TV right now and offers unlimited movies for the same fee as a single video rental at the store.

By the time a university student gets to university, they have already spent 20,000 hours online and an additional 10,000 hours spent playing video games.

The average worker is exposed to between 3,000 and 5,000 marketing messages per day. The average consumer can download music, videos and the like for next to nothing or for free. They can purchase goods in the middle of the night and have them shipped next day.

So what does this all mean to safety?

It means that how you recruit, choose, equip and train your people in the ways of safety are far different than they were even ten years ago. So why are you trying to make a broken model work?

If an employee can find a lesson on how to unclog a drain by watching a YouTube video, then wouldn't it figure that they would go to the same place to learn how to do their jobs? Why aren't your training lessons in the same place? Why is your training still being done in the old, broken classroom and paper manual way?

The worker of tomorrow doesn't remember anything except where to find the information they are looking for. They won't remember the procedure in the manual but they will remember where to find the video that reminds them of the procedure.

Stop thinking that every worker has the same capacity for memory and recall as Baby Boomers. They don't. Start looking toward the future and digitize your training utilizing on-demand video, text message and easy access to information.

If you want to engage your people to reduce workplace incidents, start thinking like they think. Make it easy for them to make the right decisions - don't expect that they will just because you told them once.

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Health Canada Weighs In On Cell Phone Use

Health Canada released guidelines this week on how cellphone users can reduce the risk of certain types of cancer. This, despite scientific evidence that says it is far from conclusive that cancer and cellphone use are linked.

You should read this story from the Calgary Herald.

So far, the best evidence is that handsfree Bluetooth units still provide better protection (1/1000th the radiation) rather than putting the cell phone next to your head. Air tube headsets seem to provide the best protection.

At any rate, get the phones away from your head.

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Why Your Hotel Room Safe Is Not Safe

When The Crap Hits

Following a cattle-hauler is stressful enough (been hit more than once by a gooey brown substance that slips off the truck in the wind). But following this particular cattle-hauler was a little more stressful: weaving side to side in and out of his lane and traveling well below the posted speed.

Once we saw an opening we went past only to find the driver reading some sort of manual while he was driving. The company name was written across the side of the truck and the unit number on the front fender. But it didn't end there. While we drove in front of the truck, a large dog began to make its way out onto the highway. I swerved and was able to avoid missing the dog. The truck driver, seemingly unaware of the dog's presence on the road, hit the dog squarely at highway speed and kept driving as though oblivious to what had just happened.

My wife looked up the number on the iPad and we placed a call to the trucking company owner.

Does your workplace have a policy to handle a call like I made? Do you do an investigation? Do you have a zero tolerance policy on distracted driving? Are you prepared to fire an employee who so cavalierly displays little attention to his work?

If you want to build a safer workplace, you take a tough stance on flagrant safety violations. Zero tolerance. Take no crap. Enforce it hard. No exceptions. The rest of your employees will get the message and you will be protecting lives - human and animal. There are NO excuses for being distracted while driving, ever.


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Including Online Safety Builds Better Safety Culture

Sometimes I don't understand how companies can separate physical worker safety and cyber-safety. Both involve employees. Both involve safety. But one is handled by OH&S and the other by IT - neither of which seems to have a clue about the other.

Safety is safety - whether it's online or in-person. Looking out for the well-being of your employees should take the wholistic approach - not the insular approach.

Building a safer workplace means addressing ALL things that relate to keeping your people safe. And if that means that sometimes one crosses over into the other, then you had better figure out who takes the lead.

Perhaps an overhaul of how you treat safety is in order. Maybe it's time to consider a company-wide Safety And Security Department - marrying OH&S and IT. Wouldn't it make more sense?

If you want your people to take an active role in protecting themselves while the are on the job, you must talk about safety in a wholistic way. Addressing how your workers conduct themselves on a job site but not how they conduct themselves online seems a bit short-sighted and very narrow-focused. Address all of it together and you build a stronger Culture of Safety Attitude.


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Senior Management Needs A Safety Wake-up

Safety conferences are not just for Safety Managers and EHS personnel. Safety conferences are where we should be seeing presidents, CEOs and senior management personnel who are NOT related directly to OHS in their workplaces.

And until non-EHS senior management takes an active role in safety and the adoption of cultures of safety, safety will never completely take hold in an organization.

Safety needs to be treated on the same level as finance, marketing and sales.

Senior management needs to stop treating the health and safety of their employees as an arm's-length after-thought. Senior managers need to get serious about creating cultures and mindsets of safety in their people, but more importantly, themselves.

If you as a senior manager won't make attending safety functions as paramount in your workplace, neither will your people. People will model the behavior of their leaders. And your people will continue to get hurt because, like you, they don't take safety seriously.


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The Safety Hypocrite

You put a helmet on your young daughter's head before she took that first solo bicycle ride.

You spent a fortune at the sporting goods store to make sure your son was protected well when he joined his first minor hockey team.

You bought that really good quality car-seat and secured it properly in the back seat before you brought your newborn home from the hospital.

And yet you exceed the speed limit on your way to work, make unsafe lane changes, don't regularly check your car lights, don't do walkarounds before you get into your vehicle and you complain about the new regulations on safety at work.

Hypocrite.

Safety apparently only applies to other people huh? You had better get your own mental house in order. What you say and what you do don't apparently line up. And there are a few young faces looking at you confused that you care about their safety but not your own.

Change your mind. Safety is an Attitude. Get it.


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Safety for Boots AND Suits

I'm seeing a lot of safety programs supposedly designed to protect workers - but mostly it only applies to workers who wear work boots - not so much the one who wear suits.

Look, safety is for everyone - Boots AND Suits.

If the rules don't apply to senior executives as well as front-line blue-collar staff, then what is the point of having a safety program at all?

This is not a discussion about wearing hard hats on worksites. I'm speaking about things like speeding, cell phone use behind the wheel and serious consequences for serious offenses like drinking and driving convictions. Safety is for everyone. And once the front-line workers see that senior executives MUST play by the same rules, then you stand a better chance of having full compliance and reduced risk on the job.

Safety is an attitude. It's the attitude you build a culture on. Not just safety in certain areas but the wholistic view of safety - safety for everyone on everything.

Does your safety program apply to senior execs and how they drive, text and live their lives outside of work or is it just for those workers who you think can't think for themselves while they are on shift?

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Safety And Mental Health

Whose responsibility is mental health in the workplace? Is it HR or Health and Safety?

While those two departments play "hot potato" with that one, let me point something out: mental health is everyone's responsibility. So everyone better get good at figuring out what it is and how to deal with it.

Personally, I think it is more than an HR issue. It SHOULD fall under Safety because ultimately safety isn't just about protecting people wearing boots - it's about protecting everyone - including people with mental health issues.

Do you as a Safety Professional know the signs of depression? Are foremen, managers and supervisors in your organization talking to their people often enough to notice subtle changes in behavior?

Safety managers are constantly harping about noticing the little things that could become hazards but are those same managers noticing the little things - like changes in behavior - that could get someone hurt?

Maybe it's time you started looking at Safety in a wholistic way instead of just concentrating on processes and following items listed in a manual. There's more to Safety than that.


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Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker