The Lowest Common Denominator

Facepalm

 

No, this isn’t a math lesson (I suck at math).

This is a lesson in frustration, jaded cynicism and catching myself doing something I always said I wouldn’t do in my profession.

It happened about a year and a half ago. I was just starting a new position with a fairly well known, international company. I was rediscovering my passion for safety in a way that only someone new to an operation can. The process was new (to me anyway) and exciting. The political atmosphere was new, the players were new – and yet familiar in a good way. It was refreshing to be back in a “stable” manufacturing environment after so many years in Research and Development.

Some of the challenges, however, were not new. “That will slow us down…”, “That’s been broken for years…” and “It’s common sense!” – are all, to anyone who’s been in the EHS world (for more than a week anyway), common phrases and discussions heard from employees. I have heard these everywhere I’ve worked. I’ve heard these comments from my relatives and my high school buddies about their places of employment. We all develop our little canned statements and platitudes to deflect or explain these. Life – and safety – goes on…

So, like any grizzled EHS Professional with years of “experience” under his belt, I was fully prepared to rebuke any attempt at argument from the maintenance supervisor during our machine guarding inspection.

It was like a well-rehearsed sparring exhibition – comment and counter-comment, a discussion I had all but memorized:

               Me: “There is an access hole on that machine that needs to be covered.”

               Him: “That’s crazy, it’s a 2-inch hole for lubricating the gears.”

               Me: “…and 2-inches is big enough for someone to put their finger in it and get bit.”

Him: “You would have to work really hard to get at it where it’s at and you can see that it has moving gears in it! You’d have to be an idiot to put your finger in there!”

…and then I heard myself say something that that left his, and my, jaws hanging open:

“You’re right, but somebody will find a way to do it. Safety is about managing the lowest common denominator…”

Soul Searching

 

Uttering that phrase was what started a long, scrutinizing look at where my attitude had drifted over the last several years in regard to my chosen career path.

I have always thought of myself as a “think and choose” EHS professional, as opposed to a “cause I said so” type. Meaning, I would rather spend an hour, or 2 hours, talking to someone about an issue and explaining it until they completely understand the “Why?” behind the “What?” of what I’m asking them to do. My motto for the first several years was - “Train ‘em ‘til they PUKE!” – which was my abrasive, uncouth way of saying “Keep explaining it until you see the light of understanding go on in their eyes.”

Very rarely have I taken the attitude of “because I said so” and NEVER have I taken the attitude that my job exists because people are stupid.

But there it was – a comment that revealed where my brain was at. After 8+ years of passionately attempting to educate employees on the reasons behind what I do, I had just equated my entire career to putting the whole school in diapers because one kid peed his pants in class.

When did this cynicism creep into my way of thinking? When did my passion for doing the right thing give way to the pragmatism of doing what was easy?

While soul-searching for these answers to my personal dilemma, I began rereading old policies, procedures and training material that I had written, (I keep everything on a hard drive for reference). While spooling through these old presentations and procedures, I marveled at the difference between what I presented and wrote in my early years vs. projects later in my career. I had definitely grown in knowledge, experience and technical writing skills over the years – some of my old stuff out of college was almost cartoony.

I also noticed a definite growing jaded side to my material as it progressed. Presentations became less about keeping people interested and more about reciting rules and worst-cast scenarios. Policies and procedures went from general statements of intent to pages of detailed documents that would make a lawyer cringe as I attempted to close every possible loophole and account for every possible situation. Once I noticed the pattern, I began matching old email conversations to the time frames of the material and made a shocking discovery…

As my cynicism got worse, I had more difficulty getting what I wanted done in my facility. What a cycle to be stuck in!

Realization

 

I never did find a definitive starting point, but the whole situation did get me thinking about how we, as Safety Professionals, manage our processes. I and many others, I’m sure, get caught in the trap of issuing blanket statements and rules without regard to how those rules are being perceived by the people whom they are affecting. Procedures intended to prevent injuries, metamorphose into procedures that punish everyone in order to make managing the process easier.

And don’t kid yourself – employees DO look at it as a punishment…

Think about your facility – hearing conservation, for example – do you require everyone on the shop floor to wear earplugs at all times? Are all of those employees exposed to a 90dB TWA, or do you make everyone wear them to make it easier to enforce?

Do your policies make sense? I know, regulations sometimes require procedures that don’t seem to make sense to your operation, but are you tailoring those ones that are performance standards to meet the regulation without placing an undue burden on your employees?

I was talking to an employee of another company a few years back who had just been issued a hard hat and told it was mandatory to wear it in the shop. He told me that the Corporate policy was, if there was ever a recordable head injury at the location, hard hats would become mandatory in the shop (apparently the company had not done risk assessments to see if they were needed before they had an injury). A few months later, a recordable head injury requiring stitches happened, prompting implementation of the mandatory policy in the shop (wait for it).

The injury occurred in the office when an administrative assistant pulled a box of paper off a high shelf and it struck and lacerated her forehead. Guess who wasn’t affected by the new mandatory hard hat policy…?

Take a Look at YOU

We as professionals need to take a good, hard look at how we are managing our processes. Are we managing individual risk or are we taking the easy way out.

Do some soul-searching along the way too and ask yourself if your cynicism is interfering with your career and your passion for your chosen life-path. If you’re frustrated with lack of participation and support, constant second-guessing of your decisions, people falling asleep during training, badgering by your management team, questioning by your employees over feasibility of safety processes or just generally feel like you are protecting people in spite of themselves – remember, the one common element in all of these problems, the lowest common denominator, might be you.

Be Safe my Fellows.