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.

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