Workplace Safety

It is always difficult to read or hear the news of a workplace fatality. Root-cause analyses often indicate that someone was distracted on the job, leading to the devastation of a life needlessly lost. Sometimes, however, the root-cause analysis doesn’t show all of the other potential areas of distraction. Are you facilitating an accident-prone work environment? Here are five potentially fatal distractions common in the workplace.

1. The Distraction of Production

Many employees I talk to describe the dilemmas they face when they’re expected to get work done in a timely manner. Often, the pressure to perform causes employees to believe that they need to take shortcuts in order to accomplish their assigned tasks. Communicate to employees that safety comes first. When work is performed safely, production improves.

2. The Distraction of Time

The distraction of time is closely related to the distraction of production. Companies often have policies that limit overtime pay. When these policies are inflexible and the production requirements are stringent, employees and supervisors are bound to the clock. The clock influences the decision a worker makes as to whether to do a job safely or to do the job on time. As the supervisor or manager, make it clear to employees that no job is so important that shortcuts should be taken to complete the work on time. Adopt the attitude that working safely actually saves time. Imagine how much time an incident involves with investigations, lost work time and reporting — not to mention the impact on worker morale.