Maybe you’ve heard about the Fukushima water release plan.
Or maybe you heard something about the drinking water debacle in Flint, MI.
Or maybe you’re an emergency responder and are being bombarded about the Alcohol Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) you were exposed that had the “forever chemicals”.
Or maybe you have a home with a basement and learned about Radon and its hazards.
It all boils down to the TRSUT and CREDIBILITY of those delivering the message!
I preach and preach about the key to any safety effort lies in the TRUST and CREDIBILITY of those involved in leading the effort. I enjoyed spending most of my career working for companies and, more importantly, management teams that truly believed in safety as a core value. This was always driven by the plant managers I had the privilege to work for. We were never perfect – we/I made many mistakes in our journey to world-class safety. Still, when the workforce truly believes in what we are trying to accomplish, they forgive our mistakes because they believe they are HONEST mistakes. And as long as we learned from those mistakes, we were all better because of our LEARNING.
But in today’s society and many workplaces, trust and credibility have been badly damaged, creating a lot of strain in the OSH/PSM world. The Pandemic we just emerged from seriously damaged the credibility of “safety and health.” Politicians were putting mandates on their citizens and then being caught not following their mandates (e.g., lockdowns, masking, vaccines, etc.). The debates and outright lies and some really stupid videos (many from so-called safety professionals) about the “efficacy” and some declared “hazards” of masking. These topics still arise today in many debates in the workplace regarding new safety initiatives. We should not take this distrust personally, as in all the cases I see, the safety pro is simply trying to right the ship that was sunk in society and the media during the pandemic. But it is REAL; we must recognize this lack of trust and credibility.
