From Oxford’s Dictionary…
priority
the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important.
value
a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.
Which do we want safety to be?
Folks, we all know that priorities change day-to-day, and in many workplaces, they can change by the hour. Businesses exist because their first priority is NOT safety, but making a product or providing a service to a customer. If it was not the first priority the business would probably not last long. Where we come into the picture is to try and make the business activities as safe as possible and yes, some businesses have higher expectations than others in what “safety” should look like. But we should not be so foolish to believe that “Safety is the #1 priority”.
Rather we should be striving to make safety a value in each worker. We are in essence life coaches in safety. Once we have won over their heart and minds in safety, we have won the battle so many of us have grown weary fighting. And this is not some advertisement or commercial – it is the hard cold truth behind occupational safety and health that took me 15 years to truly realize. And once I came to grips with what my role in a safety process should be, I found peace, comfort, and gratitude in this profession once again.
Dr. E. Scott Geller said it best…
Wake up late one morning and your priorities will certainly change in order to make it to that important meeting/appointment. But what WON’T change is our internal values. Such as you may skip the Starbucks coffee; heck you may even skip the morning shower to save time. But I will be money you will not skip getting dressed! Walk to your car, drive to work, park your car and walk into the office in your “birthday suit”. I bet you will feel very very uncomfortable – why? Because it is BOTH a cultural value AND a personal value. Heck people have nightmares about doing this very thing and if it was not so deeply ingrained in our values we would not have nightmares about doing everyday things in our birthday suits.
So PLEASE stop putting up banners and writing safety policies claiming safety is a priority; rather, state…
“Safety is a Value”
