Safety Management Series - Top Ten Mistakes WE ARE ABLE TO Make While Managing OHS
The challenge of managing the many aspects of Occupational Safe practices (OHS) at our workplaces sometimes can feel overwhelming. There are various legal, moral and financial reasons for us to pay attention to our OHS obligations. With many of these challenges we must ensure that we are not wasting our time, money and efforts doing things that simply don't work. Here is a Top Ten set of common errors we can make in managing OHS issues that hopefully we are able to all avoid. It's OK in the event that you start humming the theme song to one of those popular night time talk shows when you read this list.
(1) Celebrate the lack of injury rather than the existence of safety.
It is just a huge mistake to spotlight the lack of injury as the measure that we have been safe. Everyone I've ever met can tell me of a situation when they have taken a terrible risk with their well-being and have gotten away with it. Of course we have to be happy when we've gone a period without anyone being hurt, but it doesn't mean we were "safe". Safety can't be defined as a lack of injury. Safety is established by what we do, not what we avoid.
Too many companies reward the "lucky" who didn't get hurt while being unsafe and the "liars" who don't report injuries in order to avoid being the employee that breaks the safety record. We need more focus on making our work places safe by doing the safety activities it takes to create safety. Safety celebrations ought to be shared with those people who have helped make our workplaces safe and not anyone who has just been lucky!
(2) Do safety to our employees and not with them.
Rules imposed by others don't often obtain the buy in needed to actually change behaviour. Involving employees along the way of establishing the safe behaviours and rules that connect with their workplaces helps it be much more likely that those rules of behaviour will be complied with. Challenging groups of employees to set and review the standards of performance involves them in the requirements of safety.
(3) Do safety for the government.
Companies in the early stages of developing their safety cultures often make the error of being "reluctant compliers". They are doing safety because the government is forcing them to accomplish it. The worthiness of managing safety is truly good for a company's important thing productivity and performance. The sooner a company starts doing safety for the added value with their performance the sooner they'll begin to perform! Safety is approximately getting everyone home every night. Of course how we do that ought to be in compliance with the applicable OHS related laws. Don't do safety for the federal government, make your work safe and make it legal... your organization will thrive financially because of it.
(4) Ignore the need for the correct tools, equipment, materials and work area.
The historic myth that unsafe behaviour causes 88% of the incidents we experience is simply NOT true. Unsafe behaviours are involved in ALL incidents we experience. Another part of the formula that is often ignored by believing in this myth is that unsafe conditions may also be always present. We have to focus our efforts on both safe behaviours and safe conditions (tools, equipment, materials and work environment). If we only supply broken tools to humans, we must not be surprised when they get hurt. If we don't supply an easily accessible lifting machine for employees to utilize, we must not be surprised if they are injured by over lifting. Good tools and equipment increase the chances that workers can do their work by not taking unnecessary risks.
(5) Disregard the culture of unsafe behaviour.
Not making safe behaviour personal and not holding each other accountable for making it safe at the job is a huge mistake. Allowing our fellow employees to keep unsafe behaviours is frequently disastrous. We have been our brothers and sisters keepers. Not unlike whenever we play team sports games, we must take the opportunity to coach our fellow employees who are missing the safe behaviours they need to do so each goes home safely every evening.
(6) Miscalculate the energy of groups actively caring about one another.
Inviting co-workers to provide us feedback and coaching if they see us doing something unsafe is a wonderful way to raise the team approach to safety. Unless invited, our coworkers may feel reluctant to bring our mistakes to our attention for concern with a poor reaction. We're in this together why not open up the discussion and invite one another to help us through the challenges of behaving safely.
(7) Deliver Safety Programs to passive employees.
I'm uncertain what happened historically to make us believe that we could deliver safety to employees just like a pizza. The sooner we hold everyone in charge of safe production and not simply production with safety added on, the better off we'll all be. Challenging employees to create the ways to make their work safe is well documented as a for sure way to boost your safety performance.
(8) Measure results and not the activities that induce safety.
Companies who define safety activities for several of their staff throughout their organizations (like the CEO) are safer than those who don't. Demanding that the measurement of doing a great job includes doing safety tasks like: investigations, hazard assessments, inspections and attending meetings, gets what must be done, actually DONE. Not achieving this ensures that safety activities will need a back seat to production each and every time.
(9) Manage OHS differently than we manage the other elements of our businesses.
Why would a profitable successful company with an obvious record of managing success implement a "safety program" that doesn't EXACTLY replicate why they are successful in the first place? Manage safety exactly like you manage your business and you'll get similar results. You can find way too many companies that manage safety differently than their business to the peril of these safety results.
Once you learn how your employees and management team are motivated to give you production, why can you settle for doing different things to obtain safety results?
Far too often companies take a very positive and proactive approach to motivating productivity activities yet do exactly the opposite in terms of safety by giving only negative reinforcement for safety. Safety is really a condition of employment is really a commonly used threat. Of course it is, therefore is being promptly and doing all your job. Too many companies in their orientation focus on making negative consequences the main element messages during orientation rather than to tell employee that we need their create it safe here and we have been counting on you to help us with safe production. Of course you cannot ignore unsafe behaviours any longer than you'll ignore behaviours that didn't comply with your productivity systems. Stop making safety feel just like a negative thing. You'll find nothing negative about doing our utilize a concentrate on safe production.
(10) Hold safety meetings that everyone wants to avoid.
I have spoken to tens of thousands of employees in my career concerning the functionality of the "safety meetings" that they attend. Overwhelmingly people tell me they don't like what goes on in these meetings quite definitely. The natural question is "Why are we likely to a meeting and not liking the proceedings?" Simply fix it! At the next meeting stand up and tell folks you would like to discuss steps to make these meetings better. Let's all set a goal of not sitting silently at a meeting that's not addressing our needs. Just say Check out this site to unsuccessful safety meetings!
Well there you own it. I hope you have some ideas to consider to make your safety culture better. Own the safety process, be a part of creating it, stand up and be counted. We need to do this together and prevent doing things that we realize fail. Let's be successful together... it matters too much to you and individuals that you use!
(1) Celebrate the lack of injury rather than the existence of safety.
It is just a huge mistake to spotlight the lack of injury as the measure that we have been safe. Everyone I've ever met can tell me of a situation when they have taken a terrible risk with their well-being and have gotten away with it. Of course we have to be happy when we've gone a period without anyone being hurt, but it doesn't mean we were "safe". Safety can't be defined as a lack of injury. Safety is established by what we do, not what we avoid.
Too many companies reward the "lucky" who didn't get hurt while being unsafe and the "liars" who don't report injuries in order to avoid being the employee that breaks the safety record. We need more focus on making our work places safe by doing the safety activities it takes to create safety. Safety celebrations ought to be shared with those people who have helped make our workplaces safe and not anyone who has just been lucky!
(2) Do safety to our employees and not with them.
Rules imposed by others don't often obtain the buy in needed to actually change behaviour. Involving employees along the way of establishing the safe behaviours and rules that connect with their workplaces helps it be much more likely that those rules of behaviour will be complied with. Challenging groups of employees to set and review the standards of performance involves them in the requirements of safety.
(3) Do safety for the government.
Companies in the early stages of developing their safety cultures often make the error of being "reluctant compliers". They are doing safety because the government is forcing them to accomplish it. The worthiness of managing safety is truly good for a company's important thing productivity and performance. The sooner a company starts doing safety for the added value with their performance the sooner they'll begin to perform! Safety is approximately getting everyone home every night. Of course how we do that ought to be in compliance with the applicable OHS related laws. Don't do safety for the federal government, make your work safe and make it legal... your organization will thrive financially because of it.
(4) Ignore the need for the correct tools, equipment, materials and work area.
The historic myth that unsafe behaviour causes 88% of the incidents we experience is simply NOT true. Unsafe behaviours are involved in ALL incidents we experience. Another part of the formula that is often ignored by believing in this myth is that unsafe conditions may also be always present. We have to focus our efforts on both safe behaviours and safe conditions (tools, equipment, materials and work environment). If we only supply broken tools to humans, we must not be surprised when they get hurt. If we don't supply an easily accessible lifting machine for employees to utilize, we must not be surprised if they are injured by over lifting. Good tools and equipment increase the chances that workers can do their work by not taking unnecessary risks.
(5) Disregard the culture of unsafe behaviour.
Not making safe behaviour personal and not holding each other accountable for making it safe at the job is a huge mistake. Allowing our fellow employees to keep unsafe behaviours is frequently disastrous. We have been our brothers and sisters keepers. Not unlike whenever we play team sports games, we must take the opportunity to coach our fellow employees who are missing the safe behaviours they need to do so each goes home safely every evening.
(6) Miscalculate the energy of groups actively caring about one another.
Inviting co-workers to provide us feedback and coaching if they see us doing something unsafe is a wonderful way to raise the team approach to safety. Unless invited, our coworkers may feel reluctant to bring our mistakes to our attention for concern with a poor reaction. We're in this together why not open up the discussion and invite one another to help us through the challenges of behaving safely.
(7) Deliver Safety Programs to passive employees.
I'm uncertain what happened historically to make us believe that we could deliver safety to employees just like a pizza. The sooner we hold everyone in charge of safe production and not simply production with safety added on, the better off we'll all be. Challenging employees to create the ways to make their work safe is well documented as a for sure way to boost your safety performance.
(8) Measure results and not the activities that induce safety.
Companies who define safety activities for several of their staff throughout their organizations (like the CEO) are safer than those who don't. Demanding that the measurement of doing a great job includes doing safety tasks like: investigations, hazard assessments, inspections and attending meetings, gets what must be done, actually DONE. Not achieving this ensures that safety activities will need a back seat to production each and every time.
(9) Manage OHS differently than we manage the other elements of our businesses.
Why would a profitable successful company with an obvious record of managing success implement a "safety program" that doesn't EXACTLY replicate why they are successful in the first place? Manage safety exactly like you manage your business and you'll get similar results. You can find way too many companies that manage safety differently than their business to the peril of these safety results.
Once you learn how your employees and management team are motivated to give you production, why can you settle for doing different things to obtain safety results?
Far too often companies take a very positive and proactive approach to motivating productivity activities yet do exactly the opposite in terms of safety by giving only negative reinforcement for safety. Safety is really a condition of employment is really a commonly used threat. Of course it is, therefore is being promptly and doing all your job. Too many companies in their orientation focus on making negative consequences the main element messages during orientation rather than to tell employee that we need their create it safe here and we have been counting on you to help us with safe production. Of course you cannot ignore unsafe behaviours any longer than you'll ignore behaviours that didn't comply with your productivity systems. Stop making safety feel just like a negative thing. You'll find nothing negative about doing our utilize a concentrate on safe production.
(10) Hold safety meetings that everyone wants to avoid.
I have spoken to tens of thousands of employees in my career concerning the functionality of the "safety meetings" that they attend. Overwhelmingly people tell me they don't like what goes on in these meetings quite definitely. The natural question is "Why are we likely to a meeting and not liking the proceedings?" Simply fix it! At the next meeting stand up and tell folks you would like to discuss steps to make these meetings better. Let's all set a goal of not sitting silently at a meeting that's not addressing our needs. Just say Check out this site to unsuccessful safety meetings!
Well there you own it. I hope you have some ideas to consider to make your safety culture better. Own the safety process, be a part of creating it, stand up and be counted. We need to do this together and prevent doing things that we realize fail. Let's be successful together... it matters too much to you and individuals that you use!
Public Last updated: 2023-05-09 05:31:00 PM