"If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself." - Albert Einstein This may be offensive, but for me it is the ultimate challenge.
Can you dig into the problems and explain them in a simple and understandable way? Humans sometimes complicate matters, we start with a few basic principles, then multiply them with countless concrete examples. This process creates company-wide safety rules as well as the legal department that wants to protect liability in any event.
One problem, but with too many rules, employees often do not put full effort and effective decision-making. They tend to dominate rather than conform. The majority of our customers who achieve the best in safety are striving to simplify, not replicate, directives or regulations. They summarize safety rules rather than devise rules. The principles apply to several situations, while the rules and procedures focus on just one situation.
Do your safety programs teach employees how to make safety decisions or are your programs trying to make every decision possible for workers?
Nor is it an endorsement or condemnation of safety rules and procedures. Instead, it is a challenge to achieve the true essence of safety. Once we understand what they are, their specific applications become clearer and it is really necessary to remember such a list to deal with specific situations.
Once we understand a safety principle, we look for specific situations where it applies and even expand our thinking to similar situations. Just as children are taught to see both ways before crossing the street, they soon realize it can be applied to sidewalks, railroad tracks or walkways.
Definition of safety
When we asked workers about their definition of safety, we got some fairly general answers. This suggests that workers try to determine the true nature of safety but have missed the mark in one way or another. Each answer shows ways safety can be simplified and focuses on real core issues that can empower them to make safer decisions:
Safety is taking your time and not rushing. This answer shows that workers have developed a dichotomy between speed and safety. They think the accident happened because of the rush. There may be truth to this view, but it can also be a sign of a lack of planning or pre-checking.
Faster is not necessarily less secure. There are usually some other factors that make the job faster and more dangerous. You can work slowly and cautiously and still fail to recognize the risks and precautions. Rushing is listed as one of the contributing factors to accidents, but rarely the only factor. In fact, rushing often leads to errors or is the shortest way to work accidents.
Safety is about paying attention and thinking before acting. This answer assumes workers are allowed to identify and address risks. W. Edwards Deming said, "Don't do your best, but you have to know what you have to do, and then do your best."
Workers with no experience or training are often unaware of certain risks. Experience can really reduce the danger in case the worker has a low probability risk and exits without injury.
"Don't complicate worker safety"
Safety rules
Risk analysis is not just an ordinary and attention-grabbing matter. It's a technology that few people have thoroughly studied and trained in. It can be said that you need to know something and think before you act. Only then will this approach work.
Safety is following rules and procedures and wearing your personal protective equipment. This response has been adapted to many workers through safety meetings and training. Organizations have relied on rules, procedures, and PPE to provide orderly levels of security for controls labeled "administrative controls." This is secondary to addressing hazards by conditioned means such as removing or replacing the hazard with something less hazardous or non-hazardous.
The root cause of this problem is thinking that worker behavior is another controlled hazard or another tool to control risk. Interestingly, when you ask employees if they can follow all the rules, follow all the procedures, wear the prescribed PPE and still get injured on the job, they respond forcefully. forced, "Yes!"
The fact that workers readily admit their safety approach is incomplete or perfect shows that safety is sometimes far from perfect.
- Consulting on Designing Cosmetic Factories in Compliance with cGMP Standards
