The most pressing issue facing EHS professionals in the new year, according to ISHN’s 2015 EHS State of the Nation subscriber survey, is an age-old challenge that has been reported in ISHN State of the Nation surveys since the 1980s – dealing with the safety and health attitudes and behaviors of line employees. Consider:
Strategic planning is a process that provides structure to move an organization toward higher levels of achievement in safety or other areas of interest. The most common challenges to strategic planning are:
This time of year makes the best of us reflective and after doing some soul searching and reflecting I came up with a short list of things I think we as professionals can do to be even more effective:
On Friday I went to the neighborhood bar as I am wont to do from time to time. While there I saw a regular who works with my brother in an open die forge. I passed the pleasantries with him and asked him how he was. He said he was doing a lot better and was healing.
This doesn’t mean executives are heartless capitalists willing to break the bodies of workers just to earn an extra couple of bucks, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they care any less about safety than the rest of us; as Michael Corleone might have said, “it’s just business.”
There are volumes written on effective goals and how to accomplish them. From a safety perspective, many organizations struggle immensely with setting and achieving effective safety goals that help reduce injuries.
Next week I will be conducting the activities surrounding “safety day.” As leader and as a safety practitioner I was the logical selection. The notion of me getting up in front of a group of associates and trumpeting on about safety one day a year may seem laughable to some of my more loyal readers and downright hypocritical to my devoted detractors.
As I was growing up, my Papa would sit me down to discuss reality, philosophies and other aspects of life. He would often pose questions that forced me to think through to a conclusion.
A while back, I read a story about the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) asking for examples of important-sounding, obscure and even bizarre job titles. One of the entries offered her job title of Underwater Ceramic Technician; she was a dishwasher at a restaurant.
