I hear on several different job sites I have been on we have to do this or that so that we stay compliant with the safety rules, to meet KPI’s or to try and achieve an unrealistic statistic of Zero Harm. Where does this compliance fit this? If I write a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) for a high-risk job and the workers sign on and use it and someone gets hurt is it because they did not comply or because I did not understand the task and wrote the SWMS from my desk so I did not comply? Maybe the human side showed us that we are not perfect.
If we are to use a statistical number to measure safety, would we first need to know what the statistical number for human failure is? We are not perfect so there will be failures. If this is unknown then how can we comply with a number that has been made up by someone behind a desk saying we have to do better. Who is this magical person that can change humans to become perfect?
Then we have the golden rule and everyone knew what that was but it just did not make us compliant so now we have life saving rules that consist of 8 or more rules depending on the company. These they say are nonnegotiable. What is meant by that, it would make some people wonder. What will happen if you try to negotiate one? So the other rules can be negotiated why do we have them?
How is one to comply when things are changing constantly or when some things can be negotiated, and some things cannot?
We should strive for progress not for perfection.
Rob Long says
James, thanks for the challenge to think about compliance, fallibility and being human. It is astounding to look at all the crusaders of Zero at the last Global Convention (Workcover, Safework Australia, Forgeworks, Sentis etc) and just wander what part of imperfection they don’t understand. Anyone in the real world (outside of safety) knows that humans are imperfect and that expecting perfection from humans is a mental health disorder. Yet, Safety continues this laughable absurd view of risk.
Thankfully people like you who have worked in the industry for many years call out BS when you see it, just like all people do outside of safety=zero.
What is even more crazy, when the job changes and one then complies with the rule without thinking they die (eg Piper Alpha).
The beauty of being human and not a behaviourist robot, is that we can adapt and move with change (what Weick called ‘bricolage’) and not comply with a wrong SWMS or risk assessment, and live.
I’ll have a critical thinking adaptive human anytime over a compliance robot.
James says
Hello Rob
Thanks for the comment and yes I do call things out. One of my last jobs the safety manager told me I had no right to challenge her. She just had blinders on and knew all there was to know. Well me being me I kept the challenges coming and after 3 weeks she decided I didn’t fit well in the team.
To me I was satisfied with what I did and not lower my beliefs to some corporate standard that doesn’t fit the field