Change safety behavior: focus on the heart as well as the head

Why is it that safety professionals keep hoping to instill safe behavior by dealing only with the minds of employees? Think about it — skills training, hazard awareness and even (from my perspective) the misguided attempt to have one employee watch another to correct unsafe acts – all of it deals with knowledge, skill, competence and awareness. Yet we also know that employees who understand the safe way to do things sometimes don’t.

Wait, that doesn’t apply only to working. It applies throughout life. Ask yourself how many times you drove over the speed limit, used a cell phone while driving in heavy traffic, didn’t take time to put on hearing protection while using a power tool at home – and the list goes on. We are all human and whether for sake of comfort or saving time, it’s easy to take shortcuts.

I’m as guilty as anyone but I’ve found that new thinking is helping me be more conscious of safety on a 24-7 basis. My discussions with Fred Rine and exposure to the FDRsafety training session on safety awareness has caused me to be much more thoughtful about what would happen to my family if I were seriously or fatally injured. I already know my major risks. They are driving and slips, trips and falls.

I’m one of these folks blessed with great health throughout my 64-plus years. No broken bones, no surgeries and I missed 4 hours of work in a 43-year career. But in the last few months, I took two tumbles – both from really stupid situations that were avoidable and I will not discuss. Both had to do with a “time” issue. I have done my self-assessment and made a commitment (to myself) to be more diligent.

Thinking from the heart

What’s important and the focus of this post is not what but why. I “want to be safer” because of my family. It’s thinking about safety from the heart – not the head. I know what to do from my head but the “want to” comes from the heart.

That takes me to thinking about my years in safety and what I read in all the professional journals and articles. We are simply missing the boat. The drive to reduce OSHA recordable cases is necessary but far from sufficient. 96% of accidental deaths are away from work. The offset of the natural inclination to take shortcuts – on and off the job – is to get folks to think about their families and make safety a 24-7 priority. That will also help improve safety in the homes and community if we do this right.

If we value someone’s safety and desire to have them “want to” be safe, we need to deal with the heart as well as the mind. Let’s expand our focus and start dealing with the real issues that are being ignored.