There
are so many safety programs out there that claim to reduce the occurrence of
accidents and improve culture, yet I don’t see any solid evidence of anyone
particular program that has proven to be totally effective. A business may have
one owner and one employee (i.e. owner operator of a small lawn-care business),
but even they, with no other internal or external influences can have accident
or deviate form their own governance, thus allowing for a failure. It seems
true to me, that because the basic stuff is not working, not being done, mostly
because it costs too much time and effort, we introduce more complex stuff to
see if that will work.
Humans
are very good at overcomplicating things, only to discover the easy option was
in fact the best option, but because we don’t react well to easy stuff, because
we think we must be already be doing it, because if we weren’t already doing
it, then we might seem incompetent. So we neglect the easy systems on the basis
that; only fools use basic systems and smart people use complicated systems.
Safety needs to get back to the basics; good training, good communication, good
procedures, good risk management, and mindful leadership
