“Regardless of the circumstances, workers often become victims of their own decisions. Accident investigations usually reveal that injuries occur when something or someone distracted a worker on the job,” says the co-author of Zero! Responsible safety by design, Deb Potter.

The worker then hurries, takes a shortcut or decides not to follow safe work procedures, which frequently result in significant personal injury, as well as the destruction of company equipment and property.

Managers are satisfied with mediocre safety performance and don’t work to improve the environment by raising safety awareness and eliminating the potential for injury. 

Employees are content and inattentive to their work environment. They become convinced that management is not concerned about safety and start thinking that they are not responsible for their own safety. 

Over time, the entire organisation pays almost no meaningful attention to safety.

The result: employees become more focused on production and getting the job done than getting it done safely. So, they start taking shortcuts on the job, she notes.

“This attitude becomes an organisational norm.  Near misses go unreported.  No one wants to take the time to fill our forms and employees don’t understand the connection between sharing information and eliminating injuries,” she adds.

“Managers do not pay attention to reports. So they become unimportant.  The number of injuries increases and they become more severe.” 

Everyone becomes frustrated.  Employees blame management and management blames employees, yet no one is willing to take action to improve the situation. 

“Unfortunately, it often takes a fatal injury to cause everyone to focus on safety,” says Potter.