It became such an important issue for me that later in my career, when I had a team of about 80 people, I didn’t let a meeting go by without some discussion about safety and the importance of challenging each other over potentially unsafe behavior. One day I began talking about the cost of an accident and one of my people told me he thought that maybe that’s what I was concerned about, saving money. I replied that regardless of what you think of my intent, I offer every employee the opportunity to stop doing work they consider unsafe until we can mutually resolve the issue. How can that be a bad thing?

So at the risk of being all about the money, I recognize that sometimes saving a few bucks is a good motivator for folks. Here are a few ways in which safety can save you money!

1. Practicing good methods around the house with knives, ladders, electricity and stairs can almost guarantee a much smaller chance of heading to the emergency room for a related accident. And under no current or emerging health plan would that be an economical chance to take.
2. Keeping things clean and clutter free not only enhances the value of your home, but reduces the chance of injury and again, those same ER visits.
3. Speaking of clutter, those partially used gallons of paint from all the projects you’ve done over the years could be a problem waiting to happen. Every year or so, someone in your area is having a free disposal day for items just like that. No cost to get rid of them, and no extra fuel for fire or explosion.
4. You know that wobbly old step ladder you got from your grandparents’ house when your father helped them move to a smaller place? It might be the most expensive free thing you have in your house. Throw it away and buy a new one. Yes, this is going to cost you, but think of it as cost avoidance.
5. Have a pest problem in your home? Hire a professional to take care of it. Again, this may sound like a cost, but when you start trying to handle this yourself you are starting by treating the symptom. You may not know where the nest or hive or burrow is. I watched a neighbor go after a hornet’s nest with a power washer one summer evening. It was hanging from a second story eave, just out of reach of the stream, so he imrpovised methods of positioning himself higher. He didn’t get stung at all, but he came so close to falling from the fence he was perched on and it would not have been a minor injury. He was lucky.
6. I know you’ve heard this before, but check tire wear and inflation on all your vehicles regularly. Change those tires before they fail. Don’t wait until the day after the big rain storm when you lost control of the vehicle, do it now.

Safety, like quality, is free. Every dollar spent, along with the right discipline, will save you much more in the long run.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

When there are special events in your home, work patterns change. In particular, there is more time spent in the kitchen preparing, serving, eating and cleaning. The kitchen is full of opportunities for injury, mostly from heat. And those hazards are not just near the stove and the oven. We carry hot pans across a room, or hot soups or teas are carried. The potential for burns is much higher.

Then there are the knives that find their way into a soapy sink. If someone isn’t careful reaching in, they could easily get cut.

This advice seems a little bit late, right?

This is also the time of year when many of us make promises to do things differently. Eat better, exercise more, save more diligently, and to get things into better order. These kinds of resolutions present changes in our day-to-day workflow. The process of how we go about moving through our daily lives. And while change is good, it is also good to look for any potential hazards related to your new plans.

For example, if you are going to rise early to exercise every morning, make sure you are starting with a glass of water and a light snack. Even a small amount of yogurt or a slice of peanut butter toast can effectively help you get through a workout better. Sounds simple, but it is important.

Also related to exercise – if you haven’t been good about it recently, then ease back in. Take time to warm up, stretch, and cool down to minimize the liklihood of injury.

Plan your food intake. If you plan on eating better, don’t just go to the grocery store and buy only fresh produce and things you think are healthy. If you are not already including them in your diet, then it may take you time to get used to bringing them back, and some could easily spoil before you have a chance to consume them all.

Will you be driving at a different time because you will be heading to the gym before or after work? There may be different traffic patterns at that time of day that will require a change in how you drive. It may require more patience, or you may be driving in darker conditions than you are used to.

And don’t forget – lots of other people make decisions to exercise more, and so there will be more runners on the road. They may not be wearing adequate reflective clothing, so watch out for them!

Whatever changes you are planning, I wish you luck in achieving your new goals.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

As we move into the remaining weeks of the year, we tend to participate in activities and work that only occur in the last six weeks. It would be easy to overlook the little things, but it would be a better idea to think about the potential hazards and take the right precautions.

1. Outside decorations. Many people hang lights or other decorations on the outside of their homes. Make sure you use the right type and length of ladder. Don’t overextend it, set it to the right angle, and remember three points of contact.
2. Outdoor electrical decorations. If you have decorations outside, you need to make sure you are using the right electrical wires and plugs. Protect electrical components from moisture and use only items that are approved for outdoors.
3. Indoor electrical decorations. The big things here include running extension cords and plugging too many things into one outlet. Many modern lights and decorations run with cool LED technology, but there are still lots of electrical decorations that run hot. You need to protect against burns and the potential for fire if a hot bulb is too near something flammable.
4. Cut trees. There are several approaches to keeping a cut tree hydrated while you keep it in your home. If you do have a tree and then travel, consider taking the tree out of your home before you leave.
5. Candles. One year we had a fired in our house. My parents had a wood cabinet in the family room, and the top was decorated with pine roping and pillar candles. The pine had dried out and caught fire as one of the candles burned low. The fire was put out before anything burned besides the cabinet. We only burn candles in glass jars now.
6. Traffic. Shopping, errands, airport runs to pick up family, all put you out in traffic more than usual. And frequently at times when traffic is crazier than normal. We don’t go out the day after Thanksgiving anymore. Nothing is happening that can’t wait, and no savings worth the additional hassle. People are stressed, and that’s when they make mistakes.
7. Food. Different kind of watch out here, but this is as important as any. Not only is it important that you manage your calorie intake, but you also need to be paying attention to food handling. Keep preparation surfaces clean, cook meats thoroughly, and use common sense with storage and re-use.

This is a great time of year for so many people, don’t let the energy of the season lead you to take shortcuts or make a mistake that could snowball into a problem.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

Do you consider the number 13 to be unlucky? Or maybe you have an actual fear of the number, which is called triskaidekaphobia. If you do, you wouldn’t be alone. Thirteen is frequently left out when numbering floors in a building or even aisles in an airplane.

Yet there are some who consider this a lucky number. Traditions for luck, both good and bad, go across cultural and religious boundaries, but very few have any scientific or fact basis.

The old saying goes “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. This is absolutely true with safety. Except instead of “hard work” we would probably say “smart work”. If I take on any action in an informed way, I can make better decisions about how to perform that action safely.

So don’t worry that today is Friday the 13th. Your safety and well being is in your hands, not in the determination of a calendar date. Make a decision to not let fate determine your safety. Make informed choices as you go about doing your work, and encourage others to do the same.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there!

So today’s run was 7 miles, and it’s the first time I’ve been out that long for months. I’ve got a long way to go to be ready for this late-January event, but if I follow the training I will do well.

I ended up with a fair amount of walking breaks today, and it was a good day to just see where my thoughts would take me. They took me to my Dad. He’s been gone for 15 years now, but still with me in so many ways. Since I worked in his factory through college, I’d like to think I got a lot of ideas for safety from him. Truthfully, I got a ton of ideas about life from him. Here are a few that I remembered today.

1. Too much of any one thing is not good for you. That’s so right about so many things. Too much food, too much exercise, too much work, to much play, too much money.  If you have enough that you can say it’s too much, it’s time to course correct somehow. If you happen to be in the “too much money” category, I might have a few ideas to help you out!
2. Be Careful. It was always the last thing he or my Mom said when we left the house. Whether we were teens early in our driving careers or adults visiting from wherever we lived at the time.
3. If we were all the same, we’d all be the same. He really said that, and it has stuck with me. I’m very involved with the diversity and inclusion efforts where I work, and this phrase makes me smile whenever I think of it.
4. Do as I say, not as I do. I think I only actually heard him say this once, but it was implied, especially in regard to swearing.
5. It’s just as easy to like a girl from the west side as it is to like a girl who is from the east side. I grew up in Cleveland, in the western suburbs, and ended up dating a girl who lived in an eastern suburb. It wasn’t a background issue, just a practicality of driving issue. I think I’m even more practical than him – I’ve told my boys that it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl.
6. That’s enough for now. Good advice, and sort of goes with #1. We usually heard this after an afternoon of water skiing when he drove the boat. It’s also good advice for this post!

Do any of your parent’s sayings stay with you today?

And you know mine – Let’s be careful out there!

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists and the others linked there always give you something to think about, and may even make you smile!

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.

Many were given for actually working safely – for getting caught doing the right thing. Others were a reward for not having injury. Or at least not having an injury reported, but I’m not going to go there today.

Anyone who has spent any time in the field knows that the saying “Working safely is it’s own reward” is true, but it doesn’t generate the kind of behaviors we really want. What we seek is vigilance and action. We want people to see the potential or injury or incident, and take action to eliminate the potential, reduce the likelihood, or reduce the consequence.

I’ve never once worked more safely because if we finished the year with the right record we would all get jackets. But I have used that type of reinforcement to help get the message across. To help people consider that their change in behavior is being rewarded. The change had a consequence of keeping everyone whole and the added consequence of a “prize” for the team.

Even though many safety and HR professionals feel that the best incentive is the promise of personal well-being, many risks are just not visible until experience and training help people to see them. So if rewarding people for avoiding injury helps them develop more discipline about working safely, then great. Fear is a great motivator, but if you’re ignorant of risks, or even a bit fearless, it won’t help you.

So how do you characterize your personal motivation toward safety? How do you motivate others?

However you choose to motivate, 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.

In my second or third year as a team leader, I was making a safety presentation to my team. I was reading a lot about Deming at the time, and the whole notion that quality, managed correctly, reduces cost. The same applies to safety.

When employees are fully trained and expected to work safely, the investment involved in getting them there pays off. They stay safe and remain able to work and contribute. They never become a non-contributing expense. One of my machine operators said “You’ve always been a proponent of safety Tim, but the way you just explained it, your interest is in lower costs, not my safety. If I didn’t know you, that’s what I would have understood you to say just now.”

This was a smart guy, a team member who had worked with or for me for at least 3 years at that point. He was trying to explain to the newer employees in the room that I cared more about their personal safety than they might think I did from listening to me. I assumed they already knew that.

I asked if that mattered, if working in the safest possible manner was it’s own reward, and something we do for ourselves and our family. The truth is that my employer at the time had a tighter standard for safety than many of us had. Things we might do at home to save time or money – like use a chair instead of a steady ladder – were simply not tolerated in the workplace.

But would people work more safely because they thought I was genuinely concerned for their safety, or because the consequence of discipline for not following rules was something they could not afford?

It occurred to me that I did not care about motive. I just wanted them to work as safely as possible. If they didn’t have a personal motive, then part of my work was to help them get one.

What’s your motive for encouraging safe practices at work AND at home? What is the motive perceived by your employees? Does it matter?

Let’s be careful out there.