By:
Date Added.: Oct 21, 2011;
Category: Learning from accidents
The obvious fall out of accidents is lost productivity, damaged equipment, and temping/training costs and so on, not to mention emotional trauma, both for the injured employee, their family and witnesses to the accident.
Companies are getting better at learning from accidents and positively changing the work environment to stop the same accident from happening again. The problem is you only realise things need modifying/changing after the accident occurs. The employer is always playing catch up. How do you get ahead of the accidents?
Training
Before you rush off and organise yet another round of safety training for your employees, stop and ask yourself; what do you want to achieve from this safety training programme that the last programme did not provide? Apart from the obvious answer; to prevent injuries, you will struggle to answer this question. Why, because you think it is a training issue.
It is a given that any good employer will provide employees with sufficient training to carry out their duties in a safe manor and be aware of the safety rules of the organisation. So why do the accidents keep happening? Human behaviour is not an exact science; there is no training available to make your employees into an “exact science”.
Behaviour
When we are faced with an eminent threat to our safety, humans behave in one of two ways – ‘fight or flight’. It is a reaction that has been formed by an individual’s own unique experiences over time. In other words they have formed a behaviour or habit to deal with the situation.
Involvement
Developing a safety behaviour/ culture is not dissimilar. Changing habits is a gradual process and not a one-time event; it is not trained into people. Lasting change is formed by introducing small engaging interventions regularly until the new habit is formed. When an employee is faced with a ‘bad habit’ or ‘good habit’ choice they instinctively chose the ‘good habit’ which makes accidents a thing of the past.
About Adapto
Adapto offers a refreshingly new way of managing Workplace health and safety. Rather than slavishly following the prescriptions of bureaucrats, focusing on compliance – which invariably means rather unproductive paperwork - we actually help you to make safety work towards YOUR goals.
