May 2011 Safety Message

Creating a Sense of Urgency in Safety

When we look at our safety performance over the past years we are continuously faced with the challenge of improvements on certain projects or certain work types and we are also faced with the challenge of trying to maintain good safety performance in other areas or projects. Too often we see a long stretch or an excellent safety record broken in one day. What is the right environment that we need to promote and one that will help improve and maintain the required success in safety?

To be consistent in good safety practices it is important that we foster a culture where we maintain a constant sense of urgency when it comes to safety in the workplace. The natural instinct seems that we become urgent only after something happens and someone is injured. When things are going well in terms of safety performance our level of urgency seems to lessen. The last thing we want to do is take the time and effort into developing a great safety process and watch it crumble because we underestimated the level of status quo. We all agree employee complacency can be detrimental to our success in safety. The question becomes how do we prevent this state of complacency? If an employee believes the probability of them becoming injured is remote, they will be more inclined to take short cuts if safety precautions are slowing them down. With employees past successes at avoiding injury, their comfort zone increases and that will inadvertently increase the opportunity for them to become injured. By creating a sense of urgency at all times it will help drive these complacent employees out of their comfort zone and increase their level of awareness to the hazards that surround them on a daily basis.

In order to promote a safety culture that maintains a sense of urgency, we need to build a coalition of well respected employees, supervisors and management that all care about safety and improving our company. Every individual needs to be represented and have a voice in the development and implementation of our safety processes. By creating a sense of urgency every day, it works both ways; when the employees have concerns and supervision and management respond to those concerns and when employees change their habits and ways at the request of supervision and management.

Whether times are good or bad in safety, creating and maintaining a sense of urgency at all times will help us improve and maintain our safety successes.