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.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Put Down Your Toys And Drive - Or Pay Up
If you're a driver in Alberta, today would be a good day to practice hanging up your cell phone while you drive. Thursday, September 1, 2011, Alberta's new Distracted Driving Law comes into effect.
If you talk on a hand-held cell, text, email, use a laptop, video game, camera, MP3 player, program a GPS, read printed material, write, groom yourself whether you're moving in traffic or stopped at a stop light, or if you eat your lunch with two hands, you will face a fine of $172 for each offense.
You can argue with the police officer but the ticket is based on whether the officer thinks you were distracted while driving. Good luck fighting Police Judgment in court. The ticket is more ambiguous than a speeding ticket so if you think you were driving well and the police officer doesn't, you lose.
This new Law is billed as the toughest in all of Canada. I hope the Police give it some teeth.
It's time to put down your playthings in your car and concentrate on driving. Too bad it had to come to becoming a Law - but maybe it's better this way.
Now hang up and drive.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
If you talk on a hand-held cell, text, email, use a laptop, video game, camera, MP3 player, program a GPS, read printed material, write, groom yourself whether you're moving in traffic or stopped at a stop light, or if you eat your lunch with two hands, you will face a fine of $172 for each offense.
You can argue with the police officer but the ticket is based on whether the officer thinks you were distracted while driving. Good luck fighting Police Judgment in court. The ticket is more ambiguous than a speeding ticket so if you think you were driving well and the police officer doesn't, you lose.
This new Law is billed as the toughest in all of Canada. I hope the Police give it some teeth.
It's time to put down your playthings in your car and concentrate on driving. Too bad it had to come to becoming a Law - but maybe it's better this way.
Now hang up and drive.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
Monday, August 29, 2011
What The Safety Numbers Don't Tell You
Companies who claim to have successful Safety Programs still employ people who, on their off-time:
• drive on bald tires
• drive with broken headlights/tail lights/signal lights
• talk on a cell or text while driving
• stand on chairs to reach for things in the kitchen
• mow the lawn in sandals
• don't wear hearing protection when operating home power equipment
• don't wear eye protection when doing home renos
• don't do walk-arounds before backing out of driveways
• don't signal their intentions in parking lots
• cut across three lanes of traffic in one go
• exceed the speed limit
• wrestle with multiple grocery bags while fumbling with keys at the door
• don't wear life jackets in boats
• don't wear sunscreen in the backyard
• leave garden hoses/extension cords running across the grass
• operate propane/gas barbeque grills with faulty controls
• overload home electrical outlets
• (Sigh) and you can add to this list on your own .... you see this stuff everyday.
Are the Safety Programs really successful or is it just the illusion of success because no one has a Lost Time Incident "on the job?"
I would say that if you are going to call your Safety Program successful, you have to take into account the shift in employee attitudes about their home safety. If you don't take into account how your people conduct themselves OFF the job, then you have a successful Compliance Program - not a successful Safety Program.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
• drive on bald tires
• drive with broken headlights/tail lights/signal lights
• talk on a cell or text while driving
• stand on chairs to reach for things in the kitchen
• mow the lawn in sandals
• don't wear hearing protection when operating home power equipment
• don't wear eye protection when doing home renos
• don't do walk-arounds before backing out of driveways
• don't signal their intentions in parking lots
• cut across three lanes of traffic in one go
• exceed the speed limit
• wrestle with multiple grocery bags while fumbling with keys at the door
• don't wear life jackets in boats
• don't wear sunscreen in the backyard
• leave garden hoses/extension cords running across the grass
• operate propane/gas barbeque grills with faulty controls
• overload home electrical outlets
• (Sigh) and you can add to this list on your own .... you see this stuff everyday.
Are the Safety Programs really successful or is it just the illusion of success because no one has a Lost Time Incident "on the job?"
I would say that if you are going to call your Safety Program successful, you have to take into account the shift in employee attitudes about their home safety. If you don't take into account how your people conduct themselves OFF the job, then you have a successful Compliance Program - not a successful Safety Program.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
Thursday, August 25, 2011
How To Find Hidden Clues About People You Work With
This guy was all set to drive his new fridge home in the trunk of his car (sort of) in Richmond, British Columbia this week. That is until the cops stopped him before he ever left the parking lot (store staff called police when they saw this).
When asked by the police officer if he thought his load was safe, the driver replied that he thought it was indeed safe since it was secured by ropes and the seat belts from the back seat.
Police told him to find another way to transport it home. Seems he was attempting to not pay the $50 delivery fee the store wanted to charge him.
Now while you're chuckling to yourself and shaking your head, think about this: this guy works for someone and wherever it is that he works, he thinks that this is a safe way to transport a refrigerator.
An attitude like this is a possible danger to this guy's co-workers.
You have got to make it clear how important safety is, not just IN the workplace, but outside of the workplace too. The guy with the fridge may abide by safety procedures at work but it is obvious that he doesn't believe in safety or possess a Safety Attitude or mindset.
You can't build a safe place to work on a shaky foundation. Address the attitudes - not just the rules.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
How Earthquakes Toss Safety Procedures Out The Window
The recent Virginia earthquake was proof-positive that many safety procedures fly in the face of what people are inclined to do. In fact, instinct is more likely to be followed than Safety process when faced with the reality of a quake.
According to FEMA web site, they warn to "stay inside until the shaking stops and it is safe to go outside. Research has shown that most injuries occur when people inside buildings attempt to move to different locations inside the building or try to leave."
This AP video, shows people did the exact wrong thing during the quake. In fact, the video also emphasizes the dangers of what could happen when exiting a building during or right after an earthquake: getting hit by falling debris.
It's great that you THINK you have a Safety Plan in an emergency. But until you address the underlying attitudes and fight-or-flight response mechanisms of your people that will instinctively overrule your Safety Plan in an emergency, you have a worthless piece of paper when the time comes.
You may have developed a set of rules and procedures that are logical in an emergency, but during times of crisis, people don't act logically nor do they think logically because your rules fly in the face of everything that is ingrained through a lifetime of their experience.
When faced with a crisis, people will act in the same way as they always have because their behaviors are habitual. You, as a Safety Professional, have to change that - and it will take more than an amendment to your Safety Manual. It takes getting into your people's psyche and changing their fight-or-flight programming.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
According to FEMA web site, they warn to "stay inside until the shaking stops and it is safe to go outside. Research has shown that most injuries occur when people inside buildings attempt to move to different locations inside the building or try to leave."
This AP video, shows people did the exact wrong thing during the quake. In fact, the video also emphasizes the dangers of what could happen when exiting a building during or right after an earthquake: getting hit by falling debris.
It's great that you THINK you have a Safety Plan in an emergency. But until you address the underlying attitudes and fight-or-flight response mechanisms of your people that will instinctively overrule your Safety Plan in an emergency, you have a worthless piece of paper when the time comes.
You may have developed a set of rules and procedures that are logical in an emergency, but during times of crisis, people don't act logically nor do they think logically because your rules fly in the face of everything that is ingrained through a lifetime of their experience.
When faced with a crisis, people will act in the same way as they always have because their behaviors are habitual. You, as a Safety Professional, have to change that - and it will take more than an amendment to your Safety Manual. It takes getting into your people's psyche and changing their fight-or-flight programming.
- Join us on Facebook
Kevin Burns - Workplace Expert and Speaker
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Safety Compliance Is Not Logical
Zero incidents in the workplace is ultimately the goal of every safety strategy - but it is a goal often missed or if it is hit, it is not held into perpetuity. And there is a simple reason why it is elusive: because safety is not linear and certainly not logical.
Most Workplace Safety programs are based on the premise that if you develop a set of rules, procedures and policies, and police your people into complying with the rules, that you will have no workplace incidents. In other words, line them up, make them do the same things, train them the same, blanket-policy everything and take away the ability to choose, you should have a safe workplace.
But it doesn't work.
Although processes might be uniform, people are not. People get bored when their freedom of choice is taken away. People mentally check-out when independence is impugned. People are illogical because each thinks a little differently. Trying to get everyone focused on-task at every waking moment is like herding cats.
Thoughts are not linear. They are random.
Building a Culture of Safety for the future, because our attention span is shrinking daily, will have to appeal to more than just uniform policy and complete compliance. People are going to be distracted. When they are distracted they are not focused on the task at hand - an opportunity for incident.
The Safety Manager of the future is going to need to be part psychologist. As the 9-second-attention-span-new-worker numbers begin to dominate the workplace, organizations will need to address each individual's underlying attitudes toward personal safety to achieve positive OH&S results.
Expecting to achieve zero without addressing the underlying attitudes is like painting a car and hoping the new paint will stop the engine from burning oil.
- Join us on Facebook
Most Workplace Safety programs are based on the premise that if you develop a set of rules, procedures and policies, and police your people into complying with the rules, that you will have no workplace incidents. In other words, line them up, make them do the same things, train them the same, blanket-policy everything and take away the ability to choose, you should have a safe workplace.
But it doesn't work.
Although processes might be uniform, people are not. People get bored when their freedom of choice is taken away. People mentally check-out when independence is impugned. People are illogical because each thinks a little differently. Trying to get everyone focused on-task at every waking moment is like herding cats.
Thoughts are not linear. They are random.
Building a Culture of Safety for the future, because our attention span is shrinking daily, will have to appeal to more than just uniform policy and complete compliance. People are going to be distracted. When they are distracted they are not focused on the task at hand - an opportunity for incident.
The Safety Manager of the future is going to need to be part psychologist. As the 9-second-attention-span-new-worker numbers begin to dominate the workplace, organizations will need to address each individual's underlying attitudes toward personal safety to achieve positive OH&S results.
Expecting to achieve zero without addressing the underlying attitudes is like painting a car and hoping the new paint will stop the engine from burning oil.
- Join us on Facebook
Monday, August 22, 2011
What Safety Managers Do NOT Want To Hear
Safety, in the workplace, is an all-encompassing term. Unfortunately, in most organizations, safety has taken a very narrow focus as addressing only those items in the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
But safety is much more broad than that. Safety should also encompass worker security and workplace property security and risk-aversion.
Here are a few examples: Facebook informs "followers" when someone has checked-in at a social gathering. Foursquare announces your location in a city. Tweeters can, without thinking, tweet that they are having supper at a restaurant. All of these can, without thinking, be informing strangers of the location of company vehicles.
Most Safety Managers do not have a plan to address using social media that identifies your location by GPS or "check-ins" - especially dangerous if your employee drives a company vehicle.
Your people may be oblivious to the fact that they are even announcing, at times, when they are working alone - putting them at risk.
Does your Safety Strategy address the use of technology fully (including the safe use of social media) or does it simply state that employees shouldn't be on the phone while driving?
Safety Managers, it may not be what you want to hear, but your job is a whole lot more involved. If you're going to keep them safe, you've got to keep them "fully" safe - not just from falling or getting physically injured. How your people conduct themselves online should a safety issue of grave concern to you.
- Join us on Facebook
But safety is much more broad than that. Safety should also encompass worker security and workplace property security and risk-aversion.
Here are a few examples: Facebook informs "followers" when someone has checked-in at a social gathering. Foursquare announces your location in a city. Tweeters can, without thinking, tweet that they are having supper at a restaurant. All of these can, without thinking, be informing strangers of the location of company vehicles.
Most Safety Managers do not have a plan to address using social media that identifies your location by GPS or "check-ins" - especially dangerous if your employee drives a company vehicle.
Your people may be oblivious to the fact that they are even announcing, at times, when they are working alone - putting them at risk.
Does your Safety Strategy address the use of technology fully (including the safe use of social media) or does it simply state that employees shouldn't be on the phone while driving?
Safety Managers, it may not be what you want to hear, but your job is a whole lot more involved. If you're going to keep them safe, you've got to keep them "fully" safe - not just from falling or getting physically injured. How your people conduct themselves online should a safety issue of grave concern to you.
- Join us on Facebook
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Why Are Safety Managers Considered The Bad Guy?
I find it funny, if not strange, how the one guy in your organization who cares perhaps more about your own safety than you do and wants to ensure you go home to your family at the end of your shift, is the bad guy.
Workers who try to work without the required PPE or take safety shortcuts because the the safety manager isn't around, should be summarily fired at first opportunity.
When we see people interviewed after near-misses in their lives, sometimes we hear them say that they had a guardian angel telling them to do something that helped them avoid being hurt. But strange how no one ever seems to credit their safety supervisor for the same thing.
They will listen to imaginary voices but shun the voices that speak out loud.
Join us on Facebook
Workers who try to work without the required PPE or take safety shortcuts because the the safety manager isn't around, should be summarily fired at first opportunity.
When we see people interviewed after near-misses in their lives, sometimes we hear them say that they had a guardian angel telling them to do something that helped them avoid being hurt. But strange how no one ever seems to credit their safety supervisor for the same thing.
They will listen to imaginary voices but shun the voices that speak out loud.
Join us on Facebook
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Are Safety Professionals Becoming Robots?
An industrial company with an outstanding corporate safety record held a meeting of all of their safety personnel at a conference facility. They had been meeting for four hours already by the time I took to the stage. When I stepped upon the stage, my first view of the stage was a mess of loose extension cords, strewn VGA cables for the projector, cables running around the legs of the large video screen and unsecured cables running from the stage to the A/V cart four feet back of the stage. Not a single cable was taped down. I refused to speak until the mess had been cleared.
Had this been a job site, someone would have been reprimanded for blatant violations of basic safety procedure. Heaven help them had an OH&S inspector showed up. But this was a conference facility set up by the facility staff and apparently safety only applies to one's own workplace.
Forty-six safety "professionals" were in this room and no one noticed at least 100 feet of loose cable running across the floor? Was this a case of "not my job - not my responsibility?"
So here is the question: are repetitive Safety Procedures creating a workforce that doesn't think anymore? Are Safety Professionals becoming robots? Has "routine" and repetitive behavior closed our eyes to safety outside of the job? The evidence this day would suggest "yes!"
Join us on Facebook
Had this been a job site, someone would have been reprimanded for blatant violations of basic safety procedure. Heaven help them had an OH&S inspector showed up. But this was a conference facility set up by the facility staff and apparently safety only applies to one's own workplace.
Forty-six safety "professionals" were in this room and no one noticed at least 100 feet of loose cable running across the floor? Was this a case of "not my job - not my responsibility?"
So here is the question: are repetitive Safety Procedures creating a workforce that doesn't think anymore? Are Safety Professionals becoming robots? Has "routine" and repetitive behavior closed our eyes to safety outside of the job? The evidence this day would suggest "yes!"
Join us on Facebook
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Right Answer
It's an entry rug with "bacon" sides and it lay in front of a busy entrance to a Denny's restaurant. In the first half hour or so, I watched about a dozen people catch their feet (mostly those wearing flip-floppy sandals) and stumble forward.
I pointed it out to our hostess who claimed she was too busy to deal with it right now. Yeah, safety can always wait (sarcasm). After another 20 minutes and another 7 people stumbling, I asked our waitress to get her manager.
He came over a few moments later. I introduced myself as a safety consultant and pointed out the rug and the safety issue.
Without hesitation, he summoned a staffer to remove the rug altogether - because that's the right answer.
The second right answer, is to refuse any further rugs with bacon edges from their supplier.
Your right answer is to say something to someone, to bring it the attention of someone who can address it and not let it go until it has been addressed. Your responsibility for safety doesn't end at the door to your workplace. Safety, yours and others, is a 24/7 thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
