It has been over 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed into law the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act.

We are all familiar with OSHA as both a regulator for Safety Standards and Compliance in the workplace and as an Educator (offering Information and Training across-the-board on the OSH standards). Indeed, if you’ve not looked lately, go to OSHA.gov and scroll through the various topics available for your learning.

Have you ever wondered what our workplaces might be like if OSHA had not been enacted? Would employers, on their own, protect the health and safety of their employees? If there was no law that employers “must” have PPE, or Lock & Tag, or Vessel Entry, or Machine Guards, or Eye Wash stations…would they? If there was no expectation of you, would you be your brother’s/sister’s keeper in the workplace?

You may make sport of these questions because, obviously, times have changed.

There is so much more awareness to safety, to life and limb, than in 1970 when OSHA came into fruition. And sometimes, the regulations seem like they go overboard in detail. Still, what we know deeply is that every one of the regulations was written in blood – meaning someone was killed or severely injured – and that prompted the writing of the regulation to avoid additional victims falling prey to similar work circumstances.

The standards underscore the safe way of doing things, to reduce the hazards and reduce the opportunities for being hurt, maimed, or killed. The OSHA mandated rules and procedures have had a big, positive impact in improving workplace safety. But these only get compliance in most organizations.

Today, even with the OSHA laws in place, about 5,300+ workers become victims of job-related fatalities every year. Why is that?  Even with increasing numbers of Safety Professionals working within almost every facility, why is it that we keep killing so many people? Even with the oodles of hours of safety and health training that is conducted, why do these violations and tragedies continue?

We believe that a lot of the safety-related problems are systems problems. These are deeper than the things we can see on the surface like a specific incident or injury.

We need to dig in more deeply to find the things that are driving the surface problems. What is happening in the whole system and why? When we do this work, together, we can find things to fix that make a big, positive difference.

For example, we know that critical factors are the open flow of information for everyone, treating each other with respect and dignity and helping people to see how their work is important for the success of the whole organization. These ideas rarely show up in an incident report, yet from a systems point of view, these are huge.

We need commitments from across the organization
for improved safety.
It is all about everyone going home in one piece!

When we take a systems approach, we all get involved. The people and the company, together, working for improved safety results. Individual safety attitudes, fatigue, complacency, lack of taking responsibility, taking shortcuts and carelessness are addressed in the systems approach, and lead to fewer risks and serious injuries, even deaths.

Training must be meaningfully connected to the real work. Keeping track of injuries and incidents is also essential – why? These lagging indicators are one way to tell us if we are on the right track. But we do not use these to try to manage safety; we use leading indicators like the amount of time we spend in the field with the people, sharing information, listening, learning, solving problems and fixing them at an early stage; this is a powerful leading indicator.

We don’t want to return to the era where peoples lives or limbs accounted for little. Rather, that OSHA’s stated purpose for every company is fulfilled: “Each employer shall furnish a place of employment which is free/protected from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to their employees.”

I repeat my mantra:

“It is not okay for me to work and make my living
where it is okay for you to get hurt – physically or psychologically.
So, let’s figure it out together…how to profitably stay in business
and stay safe and secure all at the same time.”

What differentiates a good safety culture? Internalized, focused communications…up and down. It is the energetic daily conversations that are crucial for having a safe workplace and safe attitudes.

Because, through conversation you engage employees to think for themselves, in turn, focus (less auto-pilot) and ultimately, to develop a discipline where the employee thinks things through (daily), has the autonomy (choice) in addressing the perceived greatest risks, and overall, the daily conversation becomes the “muscle” – to active caring – building relationships. (And no one gets hurt!)

Plus, the more awareness of our surroundings we develop the better off we are from being surprised by workplace hazards, or from bullying emerging, or from being surprised by a perpetrator entering our workplace to do harm. Awareness matters in both the safety of doing our tasks and in the security of surveying our environment. Call me to learn more about the processes we use to heighten safety, security, effectiveness, performance. Culture matters.

With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. Note: OSHA has now weighed in on Workplace Violence as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive psychological behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide.

Top 10

1. Fall Protection, construction
2. Hazard Communication Standard, general industry
3. Respiratory Protection, general industry
4. Scaffolding, general requirements, construction
5. Ladders, construction
6. Control of Hazardous Energy (lockout/tagout), general industry
7. Powered Industrial Trucks, general industry
8. Fall Protection – Training Requirements
9. Eye and Face Protection
10. Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements

What we know is that companies must have a company culture that embodies both a systems perspective and a strong safety focus. How does your company stack up? We wrote the book on improving safety culture – give me a call if you need a re-set – 716-622-6467.