Selling safety in the workplace

I am all for safety but they need to use common sense. We do work for an oil company. They have guidelines for what type of protective gear that the people on the rigs need to wear. Things like hard hats, big thick gloves, fire proof clothing, steel toe boots, etc. All of this stuff makes sense and is a good idea if you are on a rig but they mandate it for anyone in the field. In our case we are there way before the rigs and not around any machinery or fire hazards unless the pasture catches on fire. Unless a receiver falls off of a rod I don't see anything hitting me in the head. It makes no sense not does it make us safer to wear all that stuff but that is rule.

We take safety continuously seriously.

As an "old timer" I have seen a good deal of accidents occur in the course if surveying, from minor to major. They were all avoidable.

Two of my largest clients are power utility companies. The proximity of our work at times places us where untrained folks don't belong. Our Safety Program mirrors our client's. We also have the added vigilance of operating in other environments such as general traffic, construction sites, heavy equipment, treatment plants and subterranean environs.

We have a mandatory safety meeting every Monday. We also access EVERY worksite when we arrive the first time. Even though this takes time and may or may not charged to the client, it is necessary.

As light hearted and jocular as I am, I try to impress on every one of my employees the seriousness of safety procedures. Accidents are a hell of a lot cheaper if they are avoided completely. I believe it is the responsibility of every "older" surveyor to relate to the younger members ALL of the stupidity and carelessness we have been lucky enough to survive over the years.

On most of the jobs I work on, there's always a "Safety Program" and a weekly "Toolbox Meeting" where the superintendent belabors the obvious: "Don't stick your hand in the whirling blade", "Don't set up a ladder on a manure pile", "Follow all safety rules". I've always wondered why it's assumed we're smart enough to remember and follow the byzantine company rules, but not smart enough to decide for ourselves how to safely perform our jobs.

Dave

> I've always wondered why it's assumed we're smart enough to remember and follow the byzantine company rules, but not smart enough to decide for ourselves how to safely perform our jobs.

I see the value of mandated safety rules lies as twofold: protecting workers from their own bad judgment, and protecting them from the bad judgment of supervisors. The former helps to reduce the risk to and resulting from workers who lack good judgment to begin with, as well as to those who have a lapse and might be tempted to take an unsafe shortcut. The latter involves pretty much the same root cause, but with a generally more onerous result: putting the safety of others at risk, usually motivated by a desire to reduce cost. Neither is acceptable, but the latter is particularly deplorable.

I admit to sometimes taking risks that aren't smart, but I'm pretty deliberate about keeping my employee out of harm's way. If I get hurt I can kick myself in the butt and deal with it, but I don't want to be kicking myself for causing an injury to someone else.

Most injuries I have seen are the result of carelessness, complacency, or goofing off. You have to establish a Culture of Safety within a firm. Battling a non-existent safety culture that has self-materialized with the growth of the firm is dang near impossible.

Most large firms address this by bringing in a "Heavy". He is usually the number two in the department/company. It's the old good cop/bad cop routine. The number one gets to be the one that the prols admire, confide in (usually to complain about number two), and want to please. A smart number one listens to and attempts to placate the prols as much as he can, but always with an admonishment to "better just do what number two says". There are different takes on this, but this is the general idea. Sometimes it is a totalitarian "policy" to be enforced by local managers that is being imposed on "us" by "them".

It is quite ridiculous when one thinks about it, but the problem is that it is quite effective.

Personally I would rather hire non-idiots that would rather not be injured. Seems to be pretty near fool proof so far. My favorite saying from a local contractor "People hire and fire themselves". I know a few dandy crew chiefs that can turn out a pile of work, but when their "tertiary" habits (driving habits, lifestyle, and overall approach to safety) are considered as part of a whole I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.

Selling Safety? I have a principle that I try to live buy: "If something has to be SOLD to me, it usually isn't worth buying". Meaning if someone is trying to talk me into something that I wasn't already considering myself it probably isn't worth my consideration. You can't sell safety, you have to lead by example and provide gentle nods both positive and negative (and positive always works way better). Also, consistency plays a big role.

> Most injuries I have seen are the result of carelessness, complacency, or goofing off. You have to establish a Culture of Safety within a firm. Battling a non-existent safety culture that has self-materialized with the growth of the firm is dang near impossible.

One example I use when I'm trying to explain safe procedures to my employees actually happened:

I was on a crew and we were topoing a cow pasture that backed up to an existing addition. All of the lots had that lousy 6' wooden privacy fence on the rear. We had been instructed to get ground shots 25' into the existing lots.

This involved the rodman hopping over the fence and jockeying the rod around so the instrument man could read the rod through a crack in fence. We then taped from a lot corner for a station and taped into the yard for the offset. What could go wrong?

Hopping the fence was almost necessary because to walk around and access the yards from the front required a quarter of mile walk. The party chief wasn't interested in leaving anybody on the other side of the fence either. We just fence hopped every 50'.

The second or third day the rodman pulled himself up on top of the fence (as he had done a thousand times before), threw his legs over and slid down the other side. Except this time a two foot long cedar sliver lodged in the middle of the back of his thigh. And as he let his weight take him to the ground the sliver impaled his thigh. It caught a good size blood vessel.

What was a nice afternoon taking cross-sections for a new sub-division turned into a crazy trip to the ER. The kid nearly bled to death.

I use this example because it seems as though the worst accidents always happen when one is doing something they've done a thousand times before. Complacency. When one is in a new and scary environment they usually pay attention. It's the mundane everyday routine that can bite you like a snake.

What could have avoided that accident? Even though it seems like a waste and time consuming, someone should have been on the other side of the fence, or possibly using a ladder. At the time that wasn't an option because the boss thought it was silly.

I want my guys to have their eyes open ALL the time watching for the danger that hides everywhere.

Knowing that you but a cog in a larger machine goes a long way toward discouraging risks.

Knowing that the boss is not going to flip their lid if you take a little longer to work safe and smart helps also.

Kind of like fraud and quality, I believe that a safety culture is a top down proposition.

Ahhhh..Fence jumping. As a rodman on an MS crew (just two of us) it was my job to hunt corners and jump fences and i got good at this.
The old Schoentadt (with the pot. not five pole switch) and shovel hooked nicely on the top of a wood fence. The eight foot wood fence wasn't much more difficult, you just needed more vertical leap to get started.
Hooked the shovel and Schoenstadt on the top of one and made the leap, grabbed the top to find out the homeowner had nailed carpet strip to the backside.
It took a minute to get undone from that.

Years later working for another registered we were sent to a commercial site for an LTS "that was a big rush job". Got to the site and called registered to let him know, the site was six foot chain link with razor wire and locked and vacated.
Minute of silence on the other end when he finally mentioned we probably should be able to hop the fence somewhere. That day I learned how sharp razor wire really is.

Not two weeks back, went to an industrial site to perform an LTS. Met with a safety rep. who held a safety awareness meeting on-site and filled out, signed and dated the requisite JSA. Each potential hazard was met with a precaution and procedure.
Actually got to the part on trip hazards and the safety rep. mentioned the grass had just been mowed and was wet.
Solution: "When walking through the grass initiate a third point of contact" :-S

Same job and somehow we didn't cover hopping six foot chain link with barb wire.
I managed to hop the fence and locate rear property corners. Chief decided he would hop the fence with the robot controller handed to him once he got over.
I would have never jumped this fence in the spot he decided to.
This part was covered in a tangle of poison ivy which means an uphill battle of climbing and beating the ivy but he didn't want to walk to a clearer spot. Shredded himself pretty good, guessing by all the blood on the range pole.

I think you can only say so much about safety, the rest has got to come from good horse sense and experience.

(Tertiary) Geology Relating to or denoting the first period of the Cenozoic era, between the Cretaceous and Quaternary periods, and comprising the Palaeogene and Neogene sub-periods.???

Primary, secondary, tertiary

"Tertiary" in general usage simply means "third," but I'm not sure what Adam meant by that either.

It's from the Latin "tertiarius," also meaning "third." I remember my high school Latin teacher telling us that Romans weren't big on giving unique names to their kids, and that it was common for the first-born to be called Primus, the next Secundus, and the next Tertius.

(Roman husband to his wife: "What! Another one? Whatever; Primus, Secundus, meet your brother Tertius. Now go play outside, all of you!")

Actually I didn't even mean to say tertiary. I was thinking peripheral, but that didn't sound right. I guess associated would have worked. For some reason tertiary is what came out.

I'm not a super-fast typer, but apparently sometimes I can outrun my brain! 🙂

Most of my surveying work was around engineering stuff. As a kid I loved watching the big yellow toys doing their things. Some things don't change. Then there was that time when the road grader lost control and headed back downhill right to where we were setup. Same job some months later, they were fixing to shoot rock which I just HAD to stick around for that. Both experiences were exhilarating - at the time. Stupid in hind-sight.

Several years ago me and the ex-boss were doing a large job for a local large engineering company. The "super" gave us a little test one morning to be sure we were at least somewhat saavy to some basics. We had to were hard hats but there were times I had to take the hat off to look through the scope without bumping it - same as I do with my ball-cap and sun-glasses or safety-glasses.

Same boss but different job, he asked for some help one day. I go. He needs some help with some pipe depths. No problem.... until I pulled the lid and looked down. NO WAY I'M GOING DOWN THAT 120' WHOLE!!!

As "selling" safety. I wouldn't put it that way. It's just a smart thing to do.
I have a couple of other mountain experiences where I got myself in situations I shouldn't have been in (as a climber without equipment).

You dont "sell" safety

It's part of the company culture

From top down its "part of doing the job well"

From bottom up its "looking after your mates on the crew"

Just my $0.02

Accidents cost the company money; companies have safety programs because they save money. That point was driven home to my son during his recent performance evaluation. A few months ago he had tweaked his wrist pretty good moving some equipment. Just one of those things that can happen when doing the mundane. When given his raise information, he was told that his raise was .5% lower than he would have gotten without the accident. This will affect his income over the long run to the tune of a lot of money. I told him he now has an incentive to be more careful:snarky: Safety is also a big part of my performance review and affects my income directly.

Try this.

Andy

Developing safety in the workplace

Thank you for comments, interesting. I like the wrench idea, unfortunately we are not in 1994 anymore, a SOP stating the type of gloves require for the task at hand would have to be in placed before releasing the tool.

A couple of comments (long):

The choice of word "selling" was not a very good one; developing would have been better. As a reader mentioned, indeed, we are talking about a culture. But how do you develop a top-down culture if the top has no interest in it? In that setting, it gets pretty tricky for the supervisors who are not provided the tools, yet are legally responsible for the well-being of their crews. More and more, we hear of supervisors getting hefty fines or jail time due to accidents to their subordinates. Are the supervisors 100% responsible?

I do not like the idea of linking safety performance to money. The effect is guys will hide accidents, incidents, near-misses. The corrective actions are harder to achieve under a program which uses money as a tool to safety performance. Some companies use the system has it will keep stats better since things do not get reported.

I took a health and safety training course (five days) a few years ago.

(1) At the introduction, all trainees had the same answer when asked why they were attending "to get more contracts"

(2) The guest speaker (he was only there for 10 minutes on the first morning) mentioned something that always made a lot of sense to me. It was something like this: "Health and Safety is one of the points that we consider when planning our jobs. Incorporated in the day to day way business is conducted. Not because-we-have-to but because we want to, that's what we do." I thought it was a pretty good way to look at it.

For those of you looking for ideas on incorporating Health and Safety in your workflow, here are the suggested 12 steps from that course:

• 1. Health And Safety Policy
• 2. Hazard Assessment
• 3. Safe Work Practices
• 4. Safe Job Procedures
• 5. Company Rules
• 6. Personal Protective Equipment
• 7. Preventive Maintenance Program
• 8. Training And Communication
• 9. Inspection
• 10. Investigation
• 11. Emergency Preparedness
• 12. Records And Statistics

To me, that flow makes a lot of sense. It sure is a lot easier for a new worker to incorporate a company.

Developing safety in the workplace

> But how do you develop a top-down culture if the top has no interest in it?

I don't think that it is possible - its probably time to walk away and find another (better) employer