Video: Are You Putting Your People At Risk?

Are You Actively Putting Your People At Risk? from Kevin Burns on Vimeo.

Workplace Expert, Kevin Burns argues that companies who do not care about their people enough to ensure that they follow safe procedures it could be argued do not care about their customers either. How you do one thing is how you do everything. How can you say you care about your customers but not the people who serve your customers?

Scary Survey Numbers Impact Safety

Do you think that just because your people are still employed in a down economy, that they’re adhering to safety procedures? Don’t bet your life on it. In fact, in desperate times, employees are resorting to desperate measures and are doing desperate things to hang onto their jobs.

According to a recent survey by Adecco, one of the world’s leaders in human resource solutions, an incredible 28 percent of respondents would do something dishonest in order to keep their jobs. These behaviors include blaming coworkers for mistakes, setting up situations for co-workers to fail or even blackmailing colleagues. Gen Y’s numbers are even scarier with 41 percent saying they would do something dishonest.

In the same survey 20 percent of currently employed individuals say current economic conditions have a negative affect upon their mental health.

Finally, 82 percent of respondents said their employers are not paying more attention to performance even as layoffs reduce payrolls to essential employees.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If you think that simply maintaining your current OH&S program is going to get you to Zero as the world changes – think again. As these times in our economy take their toll on your people, they are willing to sabotage other workers to save their own jobs. IS your OH&S program ready to address this? Seriously?

Twenty percent of your people are feeling that you’re not paying enough attention to their mental health on the job. What are you doing to address this? Someone with mental health problems on the job can be a walking hazard.

The world is changing. The worker on the job is changing. The numbers of Gen Y’s on the job are changing how you handle your safety program. But are you trying to manage the potential fallout using last year’s OH&S model in this year’s economic reality?

Look, if you’re not addressing Safety Attitude on the job, you’re missing a potentially fatal hazard. Workers who are prepared to blame co-workers to simply keep their own jobs are loose-cannons on the job site. You don’t have enough supervisors to watch everyone all of the time. You need to do something different.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. The numbers speak for themselves. You do the math. If you don’t address these new realities now, your safety numbers are going to take a nosedive and your LTI’s are going to cost you a lot of money.

Courage Is Not Hiding Fears

I met Larry this week. Larry has a very powerful story of being an alcoholic on the job. We shared the stage three times this week as he helped his fellow co-workers step up and admit it when they have a problem with substance or alcohol abuse. At the end of each of Larry's three speeches this week, he received a standing ovation.

Larry admits it is hard for him to accept a standing ovation. He is uncomfortable with it. That was, until I helped him see that the ovations were for his courage. It wasn't the speech they were applauding, it was his courage to take the stage and openly admit that he had a drinking problem.

In every audience, the numbers would dictate that there were one or two others struggling with a substance abuse problem, but in the mind of a man, reaching for help is the same as being weak.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Your admission is courageous. Your willingness to deal with a problem is courageous. Your wanting a better life is courageous. Trying to numb your pain, fear and stress with alcohol or drugs is the weak thing. A man who won't face his fears head-on is not a tower of strength. He is a potential reportable incident on the job.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Do you really think people will laugh at you if you sought help for a drinking problem? Are you afraid your friends wouldn't want anything to do with you if you admitted you had a problem? Well then they're not really your friends - they're just your drinking buddies.

Dealing with your demons takes courage. I admire those who are willing to change their ways. I look up to them not down at them. I applaud the man who admits he has a problem. The man who wakes each morning to face another day without drugs or alcohol has far more courage than the man who hides behind bottle.

My own father stayed sober for the last thirteen years of his life - even in the face of inoperable cancer. The cancer killed him but the bottle never beat him. That took courage.

What kind of courage are you made of? Will you continue to keep your fears a secret and put your life and the lives of your co-workers at risk or will you show us real courage?