Be careful, experience shows that most who read this will find it offensive…
Meet “Ed”, he is just a maintenance worker I meet in 1994. My first impressions of Ed were he was safe (i.e. always followed the safe work practices, always had on his PPE properly, etc.) based on my personal observations. One day I mentioned Ed and was quickly shut down and mocked for even mentioning his name in the same sentence as “safety”. I was new to this facility, but obviously, Ed had a history. As it turns out, Ed was deemed solely responsible for the facility missing its safety record on two different occasions and this meant a sharp decline in the “incentive program”, as the incentive(s) were based solely on OSHA injury numbers. And Ed, by no fault of his own just happened to be the only employee (over his 28 years at the plant) who had the OSHA recordable that put the plant over its mark. Of course, there were about a half dozen employees who had 3 or more recordable injuries over a shorter career, but it was Ed’s two recordables that EVERYONE, including one of the finest plant managers to have walked among us, who remembered Ed’s recordables. So one day, off-site, I was spending some time with the Plant Manager (yes we became friends – as I have always done with my bosses) we began to once again have a safety discussion (like we always did!) and this one was about “Ed”. I wanted Ed to become part of the safety committee and once “he” stopped chuckling and realized I was serious he wanted to know why. Here is why… and it boils down to this: How do we define a “safe employee” and an “unsafe employee”?
99.9% of the time we will use data, albeit poor data in the shape of a recordable injury, to define an employee as “unsafe”.
But even worse, we will use the LACK OF ANY DATA to define an employee as a “safe employee”.
As my Plant Manager and I discussed Ed being on the safety committee, he offered up some other employees who he thought would make a better contribution and quite frankly each one he brought up I had already had a less than favorable coaching session with regarding their unsafe work practices in my first 9 months at the plant. A couple of them could have been fired had I reported the safety violation to the PM or HRM. But since these employees had NEVER graced the 200 Log (now called the 300 Log) they were viewed by this incredibly safety-minded plant manager as being “safe employees”.
I then went on to explain that Ed’s two recorables were not even his fault! His first one was when he got his by a forklift and broke his leg. The forklift operator had not been “officially trained – but had operated PITs for years at his other employer” and both the caution light and back-up alarm were not functioning at the time of the accident and the investigation determined they had not been operating for more than a week – yet all shifts used this PIT. Ed was in the warehouse doing inventory when this backing up PIT by a driver with zero training records available backed into Ed. His 2nd injury occurred when the warehouse personnel was using an area next to the personnel path as a temporary storage area (even though it was clearly marked on the floor and walls as “NOT FOR STORAGE”. Ed was walking to his office one day at a time a PIT was trying to move a stacked pallet from this area and a 50-pound bag slid off and struck Ed on his shoulder, dislocating his shoulder and breaking his collarbone. Again, injuries caused by someone else unsafe behavior(s) – NOT HIS!
But on both occasions, the facility had already reached its maximum number of recordables for the year and Ed’s injuries put the incentive out of reach. Never mind the 5-6 workers who had recordables before his every time, it was Ed’s recordables (even though neither was his fault) that were etched into the memories of the other 300 employees on site.
And to make matters worse, when I went back and looked at the other recordables for those years Ed was hung out to dry, I found a couple of those employees that the PM had mentioned would be good candidates (several were the same ones that I had already had discussions with) were on the 200 Log for injuries that they solely caused to themselves. Yet no one viewed these employees “unsafe”; in fact, several of these employees who had multiple incidents over their much shorter careers were viewed as “one of the best operators/technicians we have”. Quite the contrast in how workers are viewed!
So here we have a 28-year employee who has two (2) injuries, neither was any fault of their own, who has been hung out to dry because it was his injuries that ended the incentive program for the year; yet we have other employees who have had injuries and other incidents over their shorter career that were totally their fault (not following SWP, not following operating procedures, not wearing prescribed PPE, etc.) and they are thought to be “safe employees”.
So I’ll ask again.. How SHOULD we define a “safe employee” and an “unsafe employee”?
