I believe the most significant challenge we (safety professionals) face is those outside (and even some inside) our profession and their lack of understanding of RISKS. I am confident that any safety pro reading this has endured the old and tired argument…
“We have been doing ________ that way for __________ years, and it has not hurt anyone, but now you want us to do ____________?!?!?”
Recently, while participating in a serious accident investigation, there was an honest discussion of how the LOTO program and all the effort to implement it caused the accident. Yep, several members of senior management and front-line supervision pointed out that since the facility had implemented its LOTO practice, there had been several injuries and none before the LOTO program. They were serious, albeit somewhat ignorantly, blaming the LOTO program and the effort to implement it for the serious accident in which the 2-year-old LOTO program was NOT followed and cost a worker their arm.
Sadly, I was not shocked as I had heard this argument many times over my career. In fact, in this accident, several witnesses were part of the LOTO discussion, and the supervisor decided that LOTO was not necessary for the task that would be performed. He stated this task would fall under “minor servicing,” which had become a cancer within the LOTO practice at this facility. Essentially, if the LOTO would take too long or have too large of an impact on production, it was sidestepped under the guise of “minor servicing” even though the written program and training clearly DEFINED AND QUANTIFIED “minor servicing” and provided the framework to assess the task(s) as “minor servicing” and prescribed the additional/alternative safeguarding that would be required for the “minor servicing” tasks. None of these were being followed by management.
Minor Servicing had become the rule, and LOTO had become the exception! This is still happening at far too many facilities in 2024.
