Involve many for safety success

All too often, it seems, the typical training pattern and attitude is stated something like this: “We, the company, provide you, the worker, with information and instructions about what to do, how to do it, and sometimes why. It’s your job to absorb the information and follow the instructions. Clear? Good. Today’s topic is . . .”

The exercise is likely to be more effective, though, if the trainees are made to feel that they are part of a team effort intended to achieve success, for the business and in their own jobs.

“Team,” in fact, is the word most trainers would prefer to use rather than “conspiracy,” since the latter now has a subversive flavor even though the derivation of “conspire” literally means “breathe together,” and by extension to “be in harmony.” Thus, to conspire means to act in harmony toward a common end. Whatever the vocabulary, the intention is to demonstrate that groups and individuals have a stake in that outcome and a role in achieving it. In the case of safety, these include:

• OSHA: It was created to develop regulations designed to protect workers from occupational injury and illness, as well as to enforce compliance with these regulations by employers.

• Other agencies: These entities (federal, state or local) have various roles. Some (such as the EPA) establish other regulations with which employers must comply and which affect employees. Others (i.e. NIOSH) do research on which regulations may be based.

• Employers: Their desire to prevent accidents is not solely humanitarian, since worker injuries and illness have a very unfavorable effect, along with property damage, on the bottom line; so do penalties for failure to comply with regulations. But far more often than not, there is also a very
genuine concern for worker well-being.

• Supervisors: They have a stake because it bears on their effectiveness related to productivity.

• Co-workers: No one wants to work alongside a loose cannon whose disregard of safe work practices can cause an accident that harms others.

• Each worker: A significant share of the responsibility for each worker’s health and safety on the job rests with his or her own understanding and observing safe work practices.

When a trainer (also a stakeholder) can explain the roles played by all of these people and groups, this should convey to trainees that their health and safety is a major and widespread concern, which should make them even more inclined to do their own share.

Article provided by TrainingOnline. Read more at www.trainingonline.com.

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