Take away business employed safety people

The Safety Collective Group - We all make up safety

 

If we as a society really wanted to ensure safety is being done within organisations with all practicality and due diligence, we would have a separate safety sector (not government) managing workplace safety...the Collective Safety Group.

This sector would visit workplaces and assist with safety (like some Gov departments are supposed to do but don't). These safety representatives with varied expertise (engineering, environment, oligies etc) would not belong to any organisation and they would rotate between all businesses so no bias constraints can be developed. This way there could be no hiding the facts of real issues that need resolve, no under reporting, no fear of reprisal and an outcome that is the best interest of the people and organization.

Issues would have to be solved and people would have to start 'doing'. Risk and corrective actions would not just sit in a register for a short time and then be deleted and forgotten about. Incident investigations and audits would be conducted by this group with no connection to the organization. They would have no biases and no bosses telling them how the incident report 'should be shaped' or what 'should not be addressed' in an audit. Audits and investigations would be done and non conformances issued that would need to be rectified.

These are things we are supposed to be doing now, but is not working because as a 'safety person' (so called owner of safety) you cannot bite the hand that feeds you. There is to much fear and control over safety and safety practices for any real benefit to occur.

Maybe we could co as far as saying that we could introduce a collective "Safety Fee/Tax" of 2% of company turnover. This low fee would cover this safety group (and in many cases be cheaper than having an internal safety person or a safety department). This way all businesses no matter how big or small would have access to the same safety. This would also allow the many different expertise's that make up safety to work in synergy with each other. If the safety issue is a environment one, then an environmental expert would visit. If the safety issue was a engineering one then a engineering safety specialist would visit. If an investigation was needed, then an investigator would visit and they would seek other expertise advice, If an audit needs doing then an auditor would visit etc etc.

These sectors would then enter their findings and data into a central hub where the safety issue would be managed collectively. Organizations would get a detailed report and corrective actions and have deadlines to close out actions. The safety collective would be there to assist the organization. If the organization is large enough, they may still need a person to collaborate with the safety collective and internal mangers.

What is safety HERE 
What is a safety Person HERE

Wicked Problem

If safety is a wicked problem, and we accept this, we do we spend so much time and effort trying to go below the mean level of incidents and unsafe acts. All these safety programs and new old solutions will not make a collective difference because we have allowed for safety to be a wicked problem by imposing many topics. There is always going to be mistakes, pressures, greed and stupidity. There is nothing that will change this, as this is us and our existence.

A "wicked problem" is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. This is a society, and history proves we don't solves issues.

 

Society itself is a collective wicked problem when we divide it with nonsense and individualism. War is a wicked problem when it divides humanity into sectors. Bullying is a wicked problem that causes much  negative costs. Schooling is a wicked problem when many children leave school with less than average education. Our drive to success and to be number one (winner) is a wicked problem when its told to us that we can be anything we want to be as children. Greed is a wicked problem when it alters a persons life in a negative way. Government is a wicked problem when they lie and steal and cannot manage money. Control is a wicked problem when its used to manipulate people into doing topics for the gain of another. Failure to learn is a wicked problem when we see that the same occurrence of incidents occur often. Fear is a wicked problem when it's imposed onto moral dispositions.

I look at us, the human species as stupid, and you only have to watch the news and or TV shows about people whatching TV shows to prove this point. You might like my writing HERE maybe even this lecture HERE - I don't care either way

 

The list of wicked problems is long and growing, and it is us who have made them and built them, will it be us who fixes them...no, it will be a external motivator! 

 

Safety is a wicked problem, this is true. Maybe it's time to accept that like all things wicked, that these wickedness's are a collective wicked problem that cannot be solved or improved. It's a nice thought to have, a great dream, to fix a wicked problem, but foolish to assume that they are in fact curable with such collective stupidity. 

 

Maybe its time to move on from the incurable.

 

Not complete

51% behavioral choices

According to many safety stats 50% of workplace incidents are from worker complacency...Yes, many incidents are caused by complacency; lack of training, lack of good tools, lack of equipment maintenance, lack of officer commitment, lack of leadership, lack of communication, lack of job standards, lack of appropriate time given to do a task safely, lack of fair pay rates, etc etc...hang on... corporate complacency is a big cause of inconvenient events MD

 

I look at this and see it for what it is and showing...

 

Personal Behavioral Choices are a result of points 2 to 10...( so that's nearly 100% issues not directly related to the worker...

 

Well done PEER.

Masquerade

When are we going to really start talking about real issues instead of talking about topics that are not the leading issues in safety? Topics like safety managers and officers who are incompetent yet continue to get jobs as a leader (LinkedIn is full of lies and self promotion), yet these people have failed as a leader and have been a partial cause to workplace deaths and injuries. Topics like psychology, where there seems to be people who think this is the answer and will stop incidents occurring (keep in mind people don't go to work to hurt themselves), in my view this is just another expensive band aid, especially when the people promoting this stuff tell us to unlearn safety topics, to embrace risk, to not use hindsight as a way to learn, to be loose and ignore rules and not find blame.

In so many workplace safety events, there are key issues that cause incidents, but they mostly get lost within all sorts of trivial safety programs that come out by those looking to cash in and make a quick buck.

The simple fact is that organisations that are not making enough money cut corners, organisations that cause mental health issues and stress are pushing people to hard and asking them to do things outside best practice. Organisation that are not making money do not maintain equipment, or purchase better equipment, they also go lax on training workers. This (greed) is the key to most workplace tragedies, yet we continue to masquerade behind the false notion that it’s everything but these things.

As I have been saying for years, get rid of organisation paid safety people, introduce a safety TAX so that "all" organisations have access to non bias professionals/inspectors that make organisations more accountable for fixing non compliances. If safety is to become a priority, then this is the only way I see it working. There are to many organisation not doing real safety and things being ignored. It is only after event that we see what should have been done by those who knew what should have been done in the first place.

I would also like to see a day where workers have a day where they can have a minute silence for all those workers that have been killed. We need to start remembering that work kills many people, at in most case its corporate greed that does it.

Due Diligence of officers

In such tragic events such as the Beaconsfield mine incident, it was the officers and managers that failed to think critically about the expert advice being presented; it is the officers and managers who did not address critical safety concerns in relation to that industry, it was also the workers who did not think critically about known risk as they had families to feed and lives to live. Therefore it is not just the ‘safety people’ or safety department (silo) that needs to think critically, the whole organisation does and I am sure this is what they mean by Due Diligence of officers and mindfullness

Safety walk to look for high risk activities

A safety expert once said we should do a safety walk to look for high risk activities in the workplace. This sort of comment has not addressed that the high risk work should have been investigated proir to it being done in the first place, so much me expertise!!

 

So. 

 

High risk (in context of the work) should have been investigated in a safety assessment/study conducted prior to the organisation commencement of operation. A safety assessment is a comprehensive and systematic investigation and analysis of ‘all’ aspects of risks to health and safety associated with events that may potentially occur in the course of operation.

A safety walk should not have to look for high risk activities for 1) they should be addressed by the competent workers overseeing/doing the task if the risk presents itself outside of the known context 2) the organisation should have already addressed high risk prior to the inception (could be at the start or an introduction of a new topic into the company that should have gone through a risk assessment process) of any new risk. Who is best to understand their team, the team leader of the operation, not the safety person or for that matter the CEO.

Who gives stuff away (people who pursuade)

In all fairness to the cynics who question those who claim they give their safety systems and ideas away for free. I am not sure they give much away in their entirety, hey give out samplers. If you give out a picture-graph that has does not have an accompanying instructions, instructions that make sense of the picture-graph, then you have given ambiguity, for which one then needs to pursue (purchase) to get further clarity. First chapters of books, sample lollies, free gifts, first hour free consultations, I will give you my precious time free, give me your name and I will send you something etc, are all text book marketing strategies.

 

These tacts are all part of humble pursuation and reciprocity. It is so interesting to see these tricks promoted on some safety sites.

Failures and ignoring of information

You could easy reference many aspects of the Longford case to others of similar result. The more I read the Beaconsfield reports and relevant info, I am seeing failures and ignoring of information everywhere. This is why I constantly say safety is not going to be controlled by trivial safety programs or phycology. These big incidents (as with many small ones) are caused by corporate greed which forces workers to cut corners and under report real factors. 

 

I think the whole Longford (and A Hopkins book is quite good) incident was related to complacency bought on by the culture set by top levels and pressure/budget demands to not interrupt flow to customers (profit driven). Not doing a HAZOP is nothing short of OHS incompetence in an operation that should have had one, to ignoring alarms, makes way for my point relative to Isaac Newton comments below (which I cannot even get into as you will have a 30 page email).

 

While the Longford report does mention 2 main causes (but defining operator error is based on the fact operators were not trained properly, so I feel is not operator error), I can say there was a multitude of causalities that contributed (each leaning on each other). These including eleven breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act along with all the social influences that played a part in ignorance in light of these breaches.

 

As with most cases related to the proper function of proactive OHS, (that being it costs a lot of money to be proactively mindful) such OHS topics are not fully implemented due to this cost. I.e. training workers past what their obligated basic task is something many companies do not spend money on. You are shown what to do but not shown how things work to know why things may and can go wrong.

 

I.e. Training on such as what would happen if you pump hot liquid through really cold pipes, what does ice mean on pipes that are normally red hot etc (Longford accident). Just these two factors may have stopped the incident is people were trained better...what would this training cost have been compared to the final outcome? Training is key, funding training is key! What to military pilots do in-between wars...train, train some more training and train again...(but most business do not have a set budget like ADF)

 

Where the ball may fall for the next big one. (I have been working on a paper what I was calling Foreseeable Trajectories.

 

Isaac Newton explained that the future of any part of the universe can be predicted with complete certainty, if its state at any time was known in all facts. With enough information of the conditions of the objects and of the laws that govern their motion, all subsequent events can be foreseen. I don’t think we can be that accurate in safety but I think we can get pretty close.

 

Now if we look at this in an OHS context, you should be able to see the commonalty I am referencing. State being the organisation preoccupation with failure, objects being workers, parts being tasks, and laws being management systems etc..sorry for the deep thinking, but I do believe you can predict with a certain amount of accuracy the type of events that may occur in the future within an organisation using very stringent data collecting (as long as that data is correct and has full information) and known’s (what we not to be true for hindsight). Once you know what the certain risks could be, then you ensure these are mitigated.

 

Maybe if safety was done by external unbiased consultants and that all safety people were not owned by the organisation, things may improve as safety people would not have to lie to keep their jobs. I can tell you right know, safety records and training needs would not be given a quick glace over as the business would be greatly constrained to 'doing' what is required to be done to ensure OHS is best practice as said by these external safety people.