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