{"id":1614,"date":"2013-12-30T18:26:55","date_gmt":"2013-12-31T02:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2018-09-10T17:10:44","modified_gmt":"2018-09-11T01:10:44","slug":"1614","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/?p=1614","title":{"rendered":"Why Safety Professionals need to go beyond being the Squeaky Wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandy Smith wrote an article for ehstoday.com<\/a> titled, “Former President of Chemical Company Sentenced for Federal Crimes Related to Employee Deaths<\/a>“. This in turn caused Joseph Wesley<\/a>, a safety professional,\u00a0 to write the following comment:<\/p>\n

“As Safety Professionals we have to be the squeaky wheel. We have understand how to communicate the consequences of bad \/unsafe actions to the next level leadership. The people that follow us are counting on it.”<\/address>\n

And he is absolutely correct. I really do not want to short-sell the importance of the constant drum beat regarding safety, but that is just the first step for safety. It is a countermeasure rather than a solution. So much more is needed.<\/p>\n

In our safety book co-authors Brion K. Hanks and Scott Burr join me<\/a> in saying,<\/p>\n

\u201cIn regards to the unspoken cold war between production \r\nand safety, we have noticed that some industry leaders \r\nare expending enormous amounts of activity with relatively \r\nminor new achievement. Safety as a discipline needs an \r\nupgrade and a reboot. The result of this delusion (that \r\nactivity equals achievement) is that people are routinely \r\nhurt and killed on the job...<\/em><\/a>\r\n...One of the reasons we succumb to trading-off safety for \r\nschedule or profits is because management and 'designers' \r\nthrow problems over the wall instead of taking full \r\naccountability for what they create. All of this 'tossing \r\noff of responsibility' lands squarely on the worker in the \r\nfield in bad weather with pressures and dangers all around. \r\nThis is the worst place to try and solve problems that \r\nshould have been solved upstream....\u201d<\/em><\/pre>\n
Safety needs to be more systematic.<\/p>\n

\nHere\u2019s one more point. Safety professional often rely on OSHA or other safety inspections as the great countermeasure to unsafe situations. But this needs to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cInspections can detect mistakes only after they have been \r\ngenerated (or when they are in the process of being made). \r\nInspections are not predictive. They are not systematically \r\nintegrated into decision-making and they are not scientific. \r\nThey catch infractions; but don\u2019t stop hazards from being \r\ncreated in the first place. They are better than nothing, \r\nbut mistakes will be made because there are not enough \r\ninspectors to be everywhere at all times and no human can \r\nbe 100-percent vigilant... Inspections will not assure that \r\nyour workers are safe. In fact, inspections are the lowest \r\nform of assurance that can be provided. In order for \r\ninspections to be effective, they would have to be constant, \r\nomnipresent, vigilant, and redundant. But they are not \r\nconstant; they cannot be omnipresent; and it is too costly \r\nto be 100-percent vigilant and redundant... Because \r\ninspections are countermeasures they are an ongoing cost. \r\nHowever, if you generate real safety solutions this \r\nsavings is the money that you get back from that investment. \r\nIf you develop these solutions it helps your company be \r\nmore efficient and will keep your workers safer.\"<\/em><\/pre>\n
Along the same lines, speaking up, \u201cwhistle blowing\u201d, sounding off about safety issues is important. In fact, it\u2019s vital! And I applaud you because you have the courage of a lion and your heart is in the correct place. Having said that, it is a tiny part of what safety professionals can be doing today. Most people are entrenched in the belief that safety is in the way of production and that is simply not true. Industries need to completely change their mindset.<\/p>\n
I dislike it when people come on forums and promote there products or services, but in this case I\u2019m going to break my own rule and suggest you read the book \u201cSafety Under Construction<\/a>*\u201d. It explains how you can get more done by working safer. In fact, the book explains the needed change in mindset and habits so that safety is THE KEY (the leverage point) for greater construction profits and schedule performance (re-tweet this)<\/em><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Go forth and be safe and productive all at the same time.<\/p>\n
* I'm one of the authors so I hope it's not too tacky that I \r\nmentioned it. I wouldn't have mentioned the book at all except \r\nthe topics are so perfectly aligned and I wanted to add a few \r\nquotes from the book to contribute to the discussion.<\/em><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sandy Smith wrote an article for ehstoday.com titled, “Former President of Chemical Company Sentenced for Federal Crimes Related to Employee Deaths“. This in turn caused Joseph Wesley, a safety professional,\u00a0 to write the following comment: “As Safety Professionals we have to be the squeaky wheel. We have understand how to communicate the consequences of bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,91,92],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dags","category-safety","category-systems-pov","tag-countermeasures"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1618,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/1618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationscientific.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}