Who is Responsible for Safety?

There are two causes of accidents: unsafe conditions and unsafe acts. A couple of posts last week dealt with unsafe conditions that made the news. Nine out of ten accidents are the result of unsafe acts, though not always by the person immediately involved in the mishap. In fact, it could be said that those news worthy accidents from last week's posts were the result of unsafe acts on the part of management.

Today, however, we'll deal with a more common occurrence - unsafe acts by employees.

When it comes right down to it, the employee is ultimately responsible for their own safety. Why then, do employees make the choice to do unsafe acts? What could employees perceive as more important than personal safety? Don't they realize that one unsafe act could change their and their family's lives forever?

Are there things we as employers, managers, and supervisors do to negatively affect an employee's ability to chose to do tasks safely? How can employers make sure employees embrace ownership for their own safety? Here are a dozen suggestions:

1) Place the responsibility for safety where it belongs: Make sure employee know they are charged with the responsibility for doing their job safely, and that you will completely back them up on that choice. Give them the ability to say “no” to unsafe acts without fear for their job.

2) Give them the training necessary to recognize hazards: Show them specific things - like how to determine if a sling is worn beyond the safe point (colored threads). Reinforce that training often. Training once or twice a year just isn't effective. Explain the hazards of the job, and the price of distraction.

3) Start safety from day one: Most new employees are told about benefits, employee manuals, etc. their first day. Perhaps they are also given a bit of safety training in among all of that. Consider spending the first day or two on the line reinforcing that safety training instead of putting them directly on the job. Show them where to go in an emergency. Make sure they can safety operate a crane and properly lift and move objects. Teach them which PPE to use and how properly wear and maintain it. Make sure they know what is expected of them as far as safe behaviors before any other training. Training at this stage needs to be more than expecting them to pick it up by watching their fellow employees.

4) Talk about safety every day: Safety is a daily responsibility. Reinforce that importance on a daily basis. Take a few minutes at the beginning of each shift to discuss a safety point. Ask what hazards each employee encounters, and listen to the concerns. Investigate those concerns in a timely manner.

5) Involve and engage: Don't just talk to employees. Involve them in the safety process. Teach them to report hazards like unlabeled containers, or near misses. Involve them in the job safety analysis so they learn to use proper judgment. Engage employees in the discussion. Ask questions. Implement employee suggestions where appropriate and give proper credit. Show an expectation that employees are expected to not only report hazards, but to fix the hazards where appropriate.

6) Praise safe behavior: If you expect your employees to respond positively to safety, you have to respond positively to their efforts. When you see them doing something safely tell them how much you appreciate their efforts. No, I'm not talking incentives. I'm talking about a much more personal approach.

Consider having someone from upper management spend a few minutes talking about safety, or walking the floor praising and encouraging proper behavior daily. It needs to be more than just the safety department. It would be preferable to have different people within the upper management structure doing this over the course of the week, or month. Something that simple goes a long way to showing that this is a team effort, and the employee is a vital part of that chain.

7) Make sure everyone walks the walk: Talking about safety does no good if supervisors and managers don't follow their own advice. It's easy to get caught up in production demands. Make sure you aren't sacrificing safety (or giving that perception). If employees feel you are only giving lip service to safety, they won't take safety seriously either.

8) Track unsafe acts and near misses: This information can tell you where problems are occurring before they become accidents. This information can also tell you the effectiveness of your training program. Track employee movement within different areas: If you find an area where employees transfer out, there is a higher incident level, or higher than average turn-over in employment, you may want to check to make sure safety procedures are being given the same priority as production.

9) Investigate near misses with the same priority as accidents: A root cause analysis needs to be done for all near misses. Even when determining employee action find out why the employee felt it necessary to do it the way they did. Did the employee properly understand the procedure? Was it distraction from issues at home? Did the employee feel the need to short-cut? Was it feeling of “it won't happen to me”? Find out why, so you can properly deal with these issues before they become accidents.

10) Keep it clean: Give employees time at the end of every shift to clean up for the next shift. Teach housekeeping as a way to stay safe. Make sure there are easily reachable places for tools. Teach them to promptly return items to their proper place. Obtain equipment that makes housekeeping easier – from enough brooms and mops, to trash bags, to retractable hose reels. Have maintenance issues fixed as quickly as possible.

11) Mix it up: Find multiple ways to encourage safe behavior every day. A number of plants now have TV type monitors on the plant floor showing the news, stocks, menus, etc. There is no reason not to use that as a medium to get the safety message out. Do in-house safety “commercials” using employees as volunteer actors. Have safety contests – perhaps even something that can be shown off at a family day. Use your imagination.

12) Hold employees accountable: Show you mean what you preach. Make sure you have disciplinary measures written into your employee handbook with a well documented procedure for failure to follow rules. If you have someone that just refuses to follow safe procedures, do them and yourself a favor by replacing them. One or two people on a line like that, will ruin your efforts if you allow the behavior to continue. If you are a union shop work with your representative to create appropriate accountability procedures. The same goes for a supervisor or line leads - if they insist and encourage unsafe acts as the price for meeting production demands, you need to find someone capable of supervising correctly.

This video is one of the best examples of the cost of unsafe acts: http://www.harsco.com/about/video/safety/index.html If you would like a copy of this video, contact please email Wendy Witmyer at Harsco for details: wwitmyer@harsco.com


As always, I welcome comments and suggestions.