Workplace injuries kill thousands of people every year. In most cases, the injury was avoidable. The root cause: a common worker attitude of “It won’t happen to me.”
“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. |  |
Research shows that many incidents occur because people are distracted, and do not pay attention to their environment and what is going on around them. Potter says managers often fall into the same trap:
- They become distracted by pressing issues, such as the organisation’s need to increase productivity, improve quality and raise profits
- They stop paying attention to the importance of safety in the organisation
- They become blinded to the fact that the lack of attention to safety performance is injuring the organisation in the long run
- They become complacent.
| When managers and supervisors do not make safety a top organisational priority, it is easy for employees to make personal safety a low priority. Then incidents and injuries occur with increasing frequency. | |
Potter says in order to avoid this potentially deadly situation, two things must happen:
- Managers must renew their commitment to the safety process
- Employees must get involved in meaningful safety activities
Managers must get committed
It takes more than just saying you are committed to safety; you have to put actions behind your words.
Potter says managers can have a profound effect on the safety culture of an organisation by demonstrating their commitment to safety in the following ways:
First and foremost, managers must follow the company’s safety rules, and then, regularly attend safety meetings.
Managers should also consider doing the following:
Take the time to walk around and talk to employees
- Visit employees in their workplaces whether on the shop floor, in the field or in the office
- Talk about your personal concern for safety, and then listen to their concerns
- Take personal action to correct unsafe situations and follow up to let employees know the outcomes
Make a point of reviewing all reports of near misses and injuries, personally
- When managers review reports of injuries and near misses, it demonstrates the information’s importance
- Follow up on the reports to ensure that appropriate actions are taken to eliminate the causes of incidents in your organisation that could result in larger, bigger direct hits
- Ensure that your follow-up is a positive rather than a punitive action
Integrate safety into all aspects of management planning
- During the organisational planning process include safety goals and objectives then ensure that the budget includes appropriate items for safety improvement
- Communicate your organisation’s safety performance expectations goals, objectives to managers and other employees
- To encourage a sustainable change in the safety culture of your organisation, make it a point to review your organisation’s progress.
Enable employees to get involved in the safety process
- Identify areas where employees can become actively involved in the safety process and encourage their participation by allowing work time for appropriate activities
- Ask employees with specific skills or interests to participate in safety improvement projects
- Recognise their involvement and efforts
“Once they see their supervisors and managers taking safety seriously, employees will be more committed than ever,” says Potter.
“Nothing energises an organisation’s safety improvement efforts more than employee involvement in an organisation’s safety planning and process.”
Make employees aware of how they can get involved in the safety process. Involvement can come in many different forms.
Encourage employees to:
- Report all unsafe conditions
- Attend safety meetings
- Serve on employee safety committees
- Plan and lead a safety meeting
- Participate in incident investigations and facility walkabouts
- Engage in conversations with supervisors and managers to share ideas on safety improvement
- Create opportunities for employees to contribute ideas and information that will lead to safety improvement.
| Potter says, “Employees whose ideas and involvement are valued will increase safety performance faster than employees who simply follow the rules.” | |
Stamp out complacency
In order to create an organisational culture where injuries are a thing of the past, Potter says:
- Remind everyone that complacency is a killer
- Find ways to pique employees’ interest in coming up with ways of improving safety
- Create the motivation for positive change by believing that it is possible to have zero injuries in your organisation and communicating that belief to employees
- Show employees how work safety relates to their careers, pay cheques and their families
“This will create an environment where everyone at every level in the organisation will increase their commitment and their involvement in making the workplace injury-free,” says Potter.
Potter highlights five fatal distractions and how to avoid them:
The distraction of production
Employees face a tough dilemma when they feel pressured to complete work, but don’t feel as if they have enough time. In order to finish their assigned tasks on time, they will often take shortcuts, which are fertile ground for accidents. To alleviate this distraction, consider the following: - If your employees complain that they cannot get the work done in the time allowed, stop the job and listen to their concerns. You may need to allow more time or add more resources to the job.
- Collaborate with employees to come up with plans that allow them to get the work done safely.
The distraction of time
The distraction of time occurs when the clock determines
workers’ decisions about whether to do a job safely or to
complete it by a deadline. Workers want to do a good job, and a good job in most cases is recognised as work done quickly. Some companies have policies that limit overtime pay. But, when these policies are inflexible and the production requirements are stringent, employees and supervisors feel bound to the clock. To alleviate this distraction, consider the following: - Ensure your employees know that no job is so important that they should take shortcuts in order to complete the work in a timely manner
- Talk to your employees frequently about how working safely actually saves time
- Discuss how much time an injury involves with investigations, lost work time, and reports, and the impact on staff morale.
The distraction of management
Management can have a positive or negative impact on employee safety. Research shows that employees pay attention to whatever management pays attention to. If employees constantly hear about the need to reduce costs, increase production and improve quality, and hear little or nothing about safety, they will, like management, focus on everything except safety. When a manager shows up on the job site, it can become a distraction to safety.
Workers automatically begin questioning their personal performance on safety. The fear of getting in trouble can produce anger and lead to a conflict. Both management and workers should recognise this and understand that the goal of a site visit is to help and not to hinder. To alleviate this distraction, consider the following: - Be a positive influence by spending time every week with workers to show your interest in them
- Ask workers specific questions about their concerns for safety and health in the workplace
- When managers are on site, recognise that everyone may feel some discomfort. Use positive interpersonal communications to avoid conflict.
The distraction of money
If employees receive less training than they should have, and aging equipment is not maintained or replaced because budgets are tight, the number of recordable injuries goes up. When customers are out of service, many managers attempt to stretch the limits. Employees are motivated to work longer and stay on premium pay for as long as possible. Fatigue sets in, and both the worker and management tend to ignore the possible consequences. To alleviate this distraction, consider the following: - Review your budget to make sure you have funding for unexpected issues that relate to employee safety
- Give workers, even in the lowest levels of your organisation, the authority to tap into these funds when necessary
- Managers must pay attention to the limits set by regulators, and the individual must pay attention to their own limits of fatigue
The distraction of personal issues
Personal matters present huge distractions to employees. Employees often bring to work their off-the-job stress from family issues, financial concerns, or other personal problems. Without realising it, stressed and preoccupied employees can put themselves and others at risk of workplace injuries. You may find it difficult to recognise when an employee is distracted by such matters, so take time to get to know all of the workers around you and pay attention to individual responses, reactions, and attitudes. To alleviate this distraction, consider the following: - If you suspect that employees are distracted by personal issues, take them aside and discuss your observations.
- If necessary, temporarily reassign a troubled worker who performs work that requires concentration to remain safe.
- Assure employees experiencing personal crises that you have their best interests at heart, and that your goal is to return them to their normal duties once the crisis has passed.
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Focus on safety for the future
Managers and supervisors have tremendous influence on employee safety. “First, find out what diverts your focus from safety. If you find that you are focused on profits and production more than you are on safety, then stop and get refocused,” says Potter.
“You may simply need to make a focused effort to include safety into every aspect of your role.”
She adds, “Take time every day to stop and refocus workers’ efforts on doing their work safely. Let them know that no job is so important that it can’t be done safely.”
By adopting and demonstrating a personal commitment to workers’ safety; communicating the importance of safety relative to production and quality; and recognising when employees are distracted on the job, you can have a very positive impact on your organisation’s safety performance.
“Management must always communicate to the workforce that the goal is to go home every day without an injury,” says Potter. The job will get done. The question is: Will it get done without an injury?
Useful links:
SOURCENOTE: University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science; www.gibsreview.co.za
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