Dr. Dan Petersen was one of the great safety pioneers of the last 50 years. His focus was consistently on developing a viable safety culture that lived safety accountabilities at all levels of the organization. Organizations fully utilizing his Six Criteria for Safety Excellence are among the leaders in safety performance. These criteria are:
Just finished reading a fascinating book, “The Men Who Lost America” (Yale University Press, 2013), by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, a history professor at the University of Virginia.
Once my sons and I went fishing with a guide on a chilly day in Florida. The fish were not biting because it was so cold, so the guide threw some “chum” into the water (something like candy for fish), to draw them in, so my young sons could score some catches.
Years ago I worked security at a power plant. I wasn’t a peace officer, far from it; in fact, I wasn’t even allowed to carry a big flashlight to protect myself.
I am the managing director of Australia's largest safety solutions organisation, the Industrial Foundation for Accident Prevention (IFAP). We are a wholly self-funded, not for profit organisation which provides services across the broad spectrum of safety-related matters ranging from low level induction style training courses to whole-of-organisation safety culture change programmes.
When you think about the title of this piece, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is an accident that produced property damage but no injuries. While that is a common example of this principle, it is not the only one.
Performance Indicators can come in many guises, depending on their focus and means of measurement. Generally speaking, they can be Process or Outcome-orientated indicators that are measured by numbers (i.e. quantitative) or subjective perceptions or feelings (i.e. qualitative).
Resolution #1: Less Focus On Preaching More On Teaching. Awareness campaigns are important for the unaware. But most workers who ultimately get hurt do so knowing something they know is dangerous, or at very least that they suspected COULD be dangerous.
Before an organization begins to curse safety, it is probable that one or more of the following have occurred: regulators with a limited knowledge base of safety have caused grief, a condition of supposed danger has led to an operations shutdown, a series of injuries or a severe injury has caused notable concern.
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