The pandemic is chocked full of LEARNING opportunities that we can translate into our effort to improve safety at our facilities. The one that screams at me the most is one of how our elected leaders (and I use that term loosely) behaved. I said back in the middle of the pandemic that we needed to be careful as one day we would be walking in Dr. Fauci’s shoes, and there would be many who would attempt to discredit what we would be saying as the SME on the matter. With all this behavior and the press’s daily thumping, we get a massive loss of TRUST and CREDIBILITY in government. Now the stage is set for the total collapse of TRUST and CREDIBILITY when the very leaders in government announce rules that they are caught breaking and then lying about their actions. This leads to “Rules for thee, but not for me.”
This same thing can happen within an organization and its safety efforts. When the company executives/leaders’ rhetoric does not resemble their actual behaviors, we get a workforce that feels safety is a top-down directive and is being done for reasons other than their actual safety. This approach does NOT build TRUST and CREDIBILITY in safety – it DESTROYS it. A safety pro should never forget the old Irish proverb… “Trust arrives by foot and leaves on horseback.”
It will take a generation for governments around the world to regain the trust and credibility they lost during the pandemic, not because of their decisions and the population’s dislike of any of those decisions, but rather because the leaders of the governments were NOT living by their own decisions and rules.
Lastly, we need to remember, as safety professionals, we will all find ourselves in Dr. Facui’s shoes one day. We will be the SME on the matter at hand, and many will attempt to tear us down because they do not believe in what needs to be done to protect the workers. “Experts” (albeit self-proclaimed) will be plentiful to argue against what we hold as a fundamental belief as a safety professional. Our credibility will be questioned, and many throughout our careers will work very hard to minimize us by eroding the trust and credibility we work so hard to build with those we have the privilege to protect.
