Social media can be a great thing, especially for getting the word out about your services/offerings and showcasing through pictures and videos the work you absolutely should be proud of. Or, should you be proud of it? Yep, this won’t be popular but needs to be said.
Engineers, service technicians, etc. very often post pictures or videos of the work they either are doing or have done, but do you screen those before they are posted? Some of you do, others not so much. But hey, I either love the pictures and congratulate the work or I use them as inspiration for training material or article writing. So it does benefit me too.
As a technician/operator myself, I am attuned to what looks right and what looks wrong. As a safety professional, I’m also attuned to the associated risks I see. So when I see posts that clearly show no form of LOTO, use of hot work with possibly the fire watch taking the picture or doing something dangerous, evidence of hot work such as the paint burnt off the bottom of condenser drain traps because you used a weed burner/torch which exceeded the MAWT of the pipe or oil pot, not wearing PPE when they should, and the list goes on.
As a contractor, have you considered that you’re not only showcasing your work, but you just posted part of an application process while end users see it as an opportunity to identify whether or not they would use you to do their installs or service? Have you considered the audience? And that audience may well include inspectors/regulators.
WE… meaning both you as a contractor and myself set the bar for the next generation operator/construction person/welder/electrician/pipe fitter, etc. And most of that is through visual depictions and the passing of knowledge. I’m including myself here, but are WE setting the right bars for that next generation? But wait, it gets worse… Often, there are innocent depictions of the company whom you’re doing work for, which opens them to exposure too. Imagine your customer getting an inspection because of a picture you posted. The inspector doesn’t have to reference the picture, they just innocently start asking for the company’s safe work practices/procedures including for the contractors they use.
We can do better, and a side benefit might be seeing your incident rate go down and better insurance premiums. Food for thought.