How Health and Safety Decisions Made by Head Office Staff Cause Problems
Let me explain about a recent event that illustrates why we have
such difficulty creating safer workplaces. No doubt, incidents similar
to this occur every day.
This particular company has a large number of trucks and there was an incident that resulted in a driver cutting his head. It seems that he banged his head on part of the truck sustaining a minor injury. Being a good employee, he reported the incident and an investigation took place and a report compiled.
So far, so good. After this it went wrong. A senior health and safety manager who was reading the report decided that the best preventative measure was for the truck drivers to wear hard hats. This decision was sent by e-mail from the manager's office down the chain of command. The instruction was passed down to all truck drivers via managers, supervisors and health and safety officers.
The reaction from the truck drivers was one of derision. It was clear to them that the person who made the decision have never driven a truck. The cab doors in their trucks did not allow sufficient room to get in and out wearing a hard hat without it falling off.
This single act of thoughtlessness, undermined the health and safety process for the business. The drivers lost trust in the organization because they regarded the change as profoundly stupid. All the messengers of this instruction lost a considerable amount of credibility in the minds of the drivers because not one of them questioned the Senior Manager.
This was the unintended consequence of an instruction generated by a person in an office without the necessary contact with reality. How often does this happen?
Any change or safety rule must pass the That Seems Reasonable test of the people who are expected to follow it. If it fails their That Seems Reasonable (TSR) test, they are unlikely to abide by it. However, it gets worse. All subsequent changes and rules were subjected to intense scrutiny and the first reaction was one of non-compliance, "because of what happened last time with the hard hats"
What is even more damaging, is the effect of reporting incidents. Because of the reaction to the report and accident, the workforce rapidly worked out that there was a negative consequence to reporting these incidents. Effectively, they became conditioned not to report but to put on a dressing and carry on working or go home claiming illness.
Poor management in this case
This particular company has a large number of trucks and there was an incident that resulted in a driver cutting his head. It seems that he banged his head on part of the truck sustaining a minor injury. Being a good employee, he reported the incident and an investigation took place and a report compiled.
So far, so good. After this it went wrong. A senior health and safety manager who was reading the report decided that the best preventative measure was for the truck drivers to wear hard hats. This decision was sent by e-mail from the manager's office down the chain of command. The instruction was passed down to all truck drivers via managers, supervisors and health and safety officers.
The reaction from the truck drivers was one of derision. It was clear to them that the person who made the decision have never driven a truck. The cab doors in their trucks did not allow sufficient room to get in and out wearing a hard hat without it falling off.
This single act of thoughtlessness, undermined the health and safety process for the business. The drivers lost trust in the organization because they regarded the change as profoundly stupid. All the messengers of this instruction lost a considerable amount of credibility in the minds of the drivers because not one of them questioned the Senior Manager.
This was the unintended consequence of an instruction generated by a person in an office without the necessary contact with reality. How often does this happen?
Any change or safety rule must pass the That Seems Reasonable test of the people who are expected to follow it. If it fails their That Seems Reasonable (TSR) test, they are unlikely to abide by it. However, it gets worse. All subsequent changes and rules were subjected to intense scrutiny and the first reaction was one of non-compliance, "because of what happened last time with the hard hats"
What is even more damaging, is the effect of reporting incidents. Because of the reaction to the report and accident, the workforce rapidly worked out that there was a negative consequence to reporting these incidents. Effectively, they became conditioned not to report but to put on a dressing and carry on working or go home claiming illness.
Poor management in this case
- Lost the credibility and trust of the organization
- Lost the credibility of the Senior Health and Safety manager.
- Lost the credibility of the people who had to pass on bad decision.
- Created distrust of subsequent changes in safety rules.
- Strongly discouraged drivers for reporting incidents.
Thank you for reading this article. Peter L Mitchell invites you
to visit his web site where you will discover a wealth of resources such
as free downloads, ideas, articles, information and books, This site is
udated nearly every day. Click here http://plmitchell.com/
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