This leads to a lot of interesting behavior, and too much emphasis at times on the wrong things.

For instance, when the trend in injuries starts to climb, some people go into defensive mode. They direct more and more people to look at the things that caused recent injury and remind people what to do to avoid those things. If they were playing offense, they would always be looking for the next potential situation to avoid, the next hazard to put to rest forever.

When we play offense well, we “run up the score” on safe hours worked, because we are playing such good offense we can’t be stopped.

Truth is, no one has enough players to play safety defensively. You can protect only so much. You need to engage the players – your employees – in the powerful offensive skills of awareness and action.

It’s great to have an incredible goalie or an ace closer to come in and finish the game. But if the offense doesn’t score, it won’t matter. Win, you must.

When I worked in a facility that put these in place, I had the pleasure of working with one of those creative genius types. This guy had incredibly good concepts, and a ton of energy to help deliver them. Frequently, however, he was seen as just plain crazy.

My favorite part of new employee orientation was when he was called in to teach the importance of the safety obligations. He had a unique way of demonstrating the first obligation – We are obligated to refuse to do work we cannot do safely.

After explaining the concept of the obligations, and defining the first one, he would ask for a volunteer to step forward. He would walk over to a desk on the side wall and open the top drawer. He explained that this was new, super-safe office furniture. It had two safety systems built in. The first was a sensor that would keep the drawer from closing if something was not completely in the drawer. Second, if there were a sudden movement, as if to slam the drawer, it would lock up just like a seatbelt does when there is a sudden pull. These safety features, he would explain, would assure that no one could get their hand caught in an office desk drawer, a frequent form of office injury.

Then, he would open the drawer and ask the volunteer to stick his hand into it so he could show how the systems worked. Sometimes, the person would just do it, and other times they would hesitate. If they said, “I refuse to do that” he would say “but it’s not unsafe, I just explained to you the safety systems that are built in”. At this point, regardless of what the volunteer did, he helped them see the most important aspect.

Even if you think you are protected, that doesn’t mean the protections can’t fail.

What people learned in this training was the importance not only of refusing to do work that could not be done safey, but also of refusing to take any risk that they don’t have to. Reaching into the drawer to help demonstrate the safety systems is not necessary. Plus, the systems can fail.

The real importance of this first obligation is recognizing that none of us need to take unnecessary risk. Just because someone in authority asks you to do something, you still need to think for yourself. Can I do that thing safely?

Well, can you?

Thanks, and lets be careful out there.

Refuse to do work that you cannot perform safely.

If you see someone performing work in an unsafe manner, or in a manner that could lead to injury, you are obligated to speak up and stop them.

Both of these require an environment of trust and respect, and a great deal of patience on the part of managers and team leaders. If implemented in an environment that has not historically supported stopping work to look at the safety of an action, then you need to recognize the need to think differently. You need to be willing to praise and acknowledge those that are trying to bring a higher level of safety to their work.

The power of the process lies in obligation #3.

If someone asks you to stop doing something that they consider unsafe, you are obligated to stop, discuss and issue with them, and agree to a safe approach before continuing.

Would this bring your operation to a grinding halt? If so, you likely have too many safety issues on your hands and you need a major overhaul of your safety program. But if you have been chugging along at some “acceptable” level of injury and can’t seem to make progress to a level of zero incidents, I suggest you consider how you could implement something similar in your workplace.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Do you have a safety committee that meets on a regular basis? Bring the idea to them and see what they think would be the probability of acceptance. Maybe just reinforcing the idea of the first obligation is the place to start, and you could work on an observation program in the future that would allow you to consider the next two.
2. Can your management or leadership team buy in to this? Do they trust the workforce enough to know that people will use this the right way? You may need to start with that team first, and make sure they could support the implications. You aren’t selling a new safety system here, you are trying to raise the level of safety performance. You will never get to zero injuries without a process that fully engages employees. And you don’t buy that off the shelf, you implement with every day and every interaction.
3. Do you have PC or email access for employees? Consider setting up an anonymous way of submitting concerns or ideas. In one place I worked, we had a simple database set up with forms where people could submit ideas from kiosks that required no sign-in. They could choose to add their name or not, and we continually acknowledged those that submitted suggestions.
4. Are you concerned about how your union would accept a process where employees are expected to “confront” one another? Ask the union leadership to help you problem solve how this could work in your environment. First, help them see how this could lead to better levels of safety. Consider what discipline would look like for someone who chooses not to stop when confronted. If an employee is violating accepted procedures, then management should already be noticing that and dealing with it. Obligation #2 is designed to identify new areas to improve, not to tattle on those who are breaking existing rules.

As far as I can see, there is no reason to avoid employee involvement in improving safety. I see it as the only way to get to world class performance. You don’t need these three obligations to get there, but you need something.

If not this, what are you doing to get to that next level? Remember, hope is not a strategy. Results require action.

Thanks, and lets be careful out there.

My thanks to Trish McFarlane, who’s recent post on preparedness prompted my thinking about how we all can find safer ways to do things. Though not directly related, these ideas can help move past mere compliance and into an environment and culture where safety is first and foremost in reality, not just in our employee handbooks.

In a safety audit, she would be asked if she had a plan, and she would say yes. She could show a document that would list the right details and actions. She would be in compliance.

Part of why she was prepared was her experience.  She knew the threat was real. She knew that the time to act was now. She quickly executed her plan.

In safety, management frequently develops policies and procedures. Many are required through regulatory agencies like OSHA, and some are created out of necessity or past experience. Sometimes we shut the barn door after the horses are gone, but at least no more horses get out.

It’s time for a new level of policy. A policy of preparedness. A policy where we demonstrate our value for safety every day.

Where I work, we call it an obligation. An obligation is something that everyone is accountable for, and we have three of them.

The first obligation is simple, but it requires that management demonstrate discipline, openness and trust.

I am obligated to refuse to do something that I can’t do safely.

Simple, right?

My craziest boss would demonstrate this obligation for new employees in a way that stuck with them. He told them the whole plant was engineered for safety. That even the desk drawers were designed so that you couldn’t get your hand caught in them. He would ask a new employee to come up to the desk, he opened a drawer and told the new employee “Go ahead and put your hand in there. I’ll slam this shut and you will see how it works.”

Some of them did it, others said  “No, I can’t be sure of my safety.”

And that was his first point. Employees have to learn to trust their own sense of what is safe or not, and not assume they are protected.

And management has to encourage the challenge. Not just tolerate it, but encourage it.

How do you implement an obligation like this? Well, you start by asking employees if there is anything they do that raises concern over their safety. Do they feel under-trained or inadequately protected? They may not volunteer the information without being asked, you have to give them reason to trust you.  So that’s step 1. Ask your employees if they feel at risk in their day to day actions, and help them resolve that problem. That’s the first step toward going beyond compliance for a safer work place, and engaging your employees in making their workplace safer every day.

I’ll cover the other two obligations later this week.

I once worked in a paper mill that had a chlorine storage tank. Because of the tank, it was decided that everyone that worked within a certain distance of the tank must pass a fit test for respirators, and could not wear beards as they affected the ability of the respirator to save your life. So imagine how interesting it was to participate in developing a rule that employees could accept, allowing those who already had beards to continue wearing them. Yep, they had the right to refuse the equipment, which in the event of a chlorine leak, would almost certainly lead to intense criticism for allowing employees to make such a ridiculous choice.

At home, no one is advising us. We have to educate ourselves on this. There are certain fundamental things you can (and probably should) do to assure your safety on the home. What seems like an unnecessary expense could be the difference between going to dinner at the end of a chore day or going to the emergency room. So here are a few ideas that I hope you will consider.

1. There are a number of types of gloves available for you to choose. Leather gloves for heavy lifting and rough materials. Cotton gloves with textured palms and fingers. Knit gloves with a waterproof coating that are good for gardening. Vinyl, latex, or synthetic gloves that are impervious to most chemicals, good for handling paints or even picking up after your puppy!
2. Eye protection may be advertised as fashionable, but few would agree. Nevertheless, whether you need goggle type for use around your table saw, or wraparounds when using power equipment in your yard, you can find a pair that meet your needs and can even fit over prescription eye wear. And don’t kid yourself that your regular glasses are “good enough”.
3. As far as ear protection goes, I prefer the small foam type that you compress and then insert in your ear canal. But there are many other types that you can find that include those tied with string and some at the end of a plastic arc that fit behind your neck.

Every task that you do is worth looking at for safety purposes. Can it be done more safely? Is the only thing that is keeping your from that next step the fact that you haven’t bought what you need? The you should prioritze getting those items, use them, and take steps to keep yourself safe.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Before I moved to the Atlanta area, I connected in ATL dozens of times. You don’t even have to travel to or from the south to still find your way to the Atlanta airport as part of your trip. I met a passenger the other day who started her morning in Jackson, MS and was trying to get to Omaha. While it might seem logical that she was in Atlanta at that point, she got there by way of Memphis, and from Atlanta was headed to Milwaukee. Obviously, this is not the path from her original ticket, but once her first leg of the trip got disrupted it went downhill.

Yesterday I was heading to Milwaukee via commuter plane to catch a flight home. We were a little late pulling away from the gate when the attendant informed us that we still had to go through de-icing, and so some of our connections were in jeopardy. Almost everyone on this flight was connecting to somewhere else, and there was this collective groan that emerged with the announcement. It was a groan of discontent. I heard the person behind me ask his row mate, “Do you think that’s really necessary?”.

It was sort of painful to walk up to the gate in Milwaukee and see the jetway pulled away from my Atlanta-bound flight, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

When I buy a ticket, or when my company buys me a ticket, the money spent isn’t just for transportation from point A to point B. I am paying for the gate agents, the airport gate fees, the maintenance of the plane, the luggage handlers, and most importantly, the experienced experts who make the calls regarding the safety of a flight. In a weather situation like yesterday’s, I pay them to make the decision to de-ice, even though it will create scheduling ripples throughout their system. They don’t want to delay flights, but they don’t want disaster either. I sincerely believe that if the people on the plane yesterday could vote on the de-icing process, I would have been on the short end of the vote.

On the other hand, why the airline books tickets with a 25 minute connection, in Wisconsin, in February, is beyond me. The boarding process is underway before you even get there.

Do you have a peeve about safety practices that you believe don’t protect you? Would you want to put plane de-icing up to a vote?  Not me, thanks.

The words rang true for me today: Let’s be careful out there!

SaferByChoice is all about that idea. That if we equip people to make the best decisions, we will all be safer. As a result, everyone is better off. Employees are not compromised, and the business runs with less interruption.

I am traveling this week, and awoke this morning to see the scene you see with this post. Not the worst snowstorm of all time, and not a bad one by many standards. But the roads were not clear, my rental was a small, rear-wheel drive car, and the news reporters said local police were asking that non-essential travel be delayed.

Less than 10 years ago I would have convinced myself to get out there, clear the snow off the car, and get to the office. Today I thought about it for a bit, then I realized that I had all I needed on my PC, I had a good wireless connection, and I had a phone. That pretty much meant that my travel was non-essential. I had the face-to-face meetings that I came here for scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday, so there was no reason to rush to the local office today.

If there were someone expecting me in the office today, I believe I would have made the same decision. I am obligated to make good decisions for my company. Good business decisions, good quality decisions, good HR decisions, good safety decisions. I probably could handle the risks associated in driving in blowing snow, on roads that are not completely clean, but I don’t have to. Truth is, if I had an accident, I would be saying that I never should have gone out.

So instead, I was more productive than usual today. No travel time, no one stopping by the office to chat. and for an INTP like me, that makes for a great day!

Are you obligated to be safe? Do you compromise that obligation? What are you going to do about it?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

When my son was first driving, he told me he thought he was a good driver. I told him he was, but that the real test is how he would handle the vehicle and himself when the unexpected happens. A tire failure. An animal runs in front of the car. Driving in a snowstorm. Now he’s 27, and he’s a better driver than he was before, because he’s gained experience and learned from that. He’s had many “moments of choice” when he had to call on his knowledge or experience to turn into the skid, or ease slowly to the side of the road, or take whatever maneuver the situation may have called for.

If you are in a job that has anything to do with people, especially leading or training them in any way, safety is part of your profession, whether you acknowledge it or not. You are in a position to help prevent accidents and injuries. For you, the moment of choice is happening constantly. You are looking at the equipment, the machinery, the workers, the office, the conditions all around you and trying to make them all flow together in a way that is good for your business. And the safest possible way is good for business.

Have you had a moment of choice today? I’ll bet you have. It may have been a choice regarding taking that cell phone call in the car, or even considering reading or answering a text message while driving. Maybe it was walking through a factory, you saw someone doing something that could be done with far less risk, and you took the time to point out the alternative, or you chose not to.

Did you have a moment of choice this week that you can point to as one that made a big difference, either for your own safety or those you work with? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Culture is, in a way, a misleading word. It is a collective noun. It represents a collection of attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, rituals, totems, and whatever else one tries to look at to define a culture. In business, this includes results.

The most important part is you. By your leadership, your actions, your statements, and your attitudes you communicate your personal part of culture. I could work for a company with a strong culture of safety controls, but that doesn’t define who I am. Maybe I have even stronger (or weaker) views of controls.

When you have an idea, an innovation that can bring a higher level of performance, people want to hear it. They want to understand the value of the idea, and they want to know what it takes to implement it. If it involves substantial change in what is expected of people, we may use “our culture” as the excuse to not proceed. But what about “our culture” can we tap into to make the idea work?

One of my blogging HR friends, Trisha McFarlane wrote an interesting post earlier this week regarding the legacy we leave with our workplace. For me, it’s not so much about what got done, but how I did it and what that means for the future of the company.

It’s not as important to me to measure how many people got hurt while I was a supervisor. It’s more important to me to know we eliminated several causes of recurring injury. It’s more important for me to know that when I left a role, the team’s view and ownership of safety was better than it was before. I don’t care if they credit me with that change, I just care that it happened.

What’s your safety legacy? Are you generating expertise that will be better than you?

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

It might not seem to be a brave thing at first glance, but I have seen bravery in plant managers who are willing to fire someone for a safety violation. It’s brave because it is not a popular decision. It’s brave because the employee involved was trying to keep production up when he reached into the machine. It’s brave because other employees who reported the action now feel at fault, and may never speak up again.

But where I’ve seen it done, it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Whenever I am involved in orienting employees, even when safety is not my direct accountability, I make it a point to let them know how I feel about my accountability for their safety. In short, if they don’t regard their own safety adequately, then we can’t afford someone to watch over them. One hundred out of one hundred times, I will go to an unemployment hearing over a perceived wrongful termination than to the funeral of an employee who I could have stopped from killing himself.

How courageous are your supervisors? Do they have the permission to be bold?

Thanks for reading, and let’s be careful out there.