Applying Static Solutions to Dynamic Problems

Latest article by Phil LaDuke on his blog http://philladuke.wordpress.com/

Phil Says:

“I started such a wild ruckus with my suggestion that near miss reporting wasn’t perfect, that I thought I would tackle something a bit less controversial (dealing with whack jobs for hours on end can be exhausting even for the master of provocation). This week I decided that I would address the issue of creating safety solutions that are essentially static and applying them to a dynamic environment. Too often we try to make the workplace safer by applying static solutions (which are easy to invent and sell) to dynamic problems (like worker safety). I hope you will give it a read and let me know what you think. Let the wild yowling begin!”

Extract:

One of the most difficult things associated with creating a safe workplace is that the workplace keeps changing, and—at least in many organizations—our safety solutions don’t. Some of you are reading this and already throwing up defenses. Of course safety changes, after all we do Job Safety Analysis on tasks where an engineering change has been made, we review our safety policies annually, and we do continuous improvement workshops designed to make the workplace safer. It’s fair argument but too often the pace of change outstrips the organization’s ability to update—and indeed sometimes overhaul—it’s approach to safety.

The workplace—any workplace—is continuously changing: bearing wear out, lanyards fray, people get older and everything, and I mean everything, is grinding it’s way toward the end of its useful life.

Read the rest of the article: http://philladuke.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/safety-we-cant-apply-static-solutions-to-dynamic-environments/