Everyday safety

Everyday safety

I wrote recently about bells and whistles in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/bells-and-whistles-and-due-diligence/) and how easily Safety is seduced into some delusional campaign of heroes and nirvana.

One of the core messages of safety ought to be that there is not utopia and no nirvana. The quest for infallibility is a religious dream. We don’t need religious language in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/no-evidence-for-the-religion-of-zero) because plain and simple: safety is just an everyday thing.

I find it amusing every time someone runs off into some safety bells and whistles hero campaign or zero campaign that it’s all about spin and the reality is back to the basics (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-vision-as-propaganda/).

There is no zero vision, there’s just safety basics wrapped up in zero discourse. There’s no safety heroes, there’s just safety basics wrapped up in discourse about heroics. There is nothing heroic about preventing slips, trips and falls. I don’t need Hazardman to save me. There’s nothing heroic about housekeeping or undertaking a risk assessment. I don’t need to make safety ‘sexy’ or call myself a ‘nerd’ to draw attention to safety. If anything, safety ought to be in the background not in the foreground.

Why is it that Safety needs to make so much noise? A clear demonstration of feelings of inadequacy? Why calls for heroics? A clear demonstration of frustrations with fallibility? And OMG, if I have to be sexy to sell safety then risk just increased 10 fold.

Wouldn’t it be good to make things plain, and be everyday with safety. Indeed, maybe talk about it less and just integrate it into how you live. Safety ought not to be some special thing but rather an everyday thing.

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

• How to Make Ensure That People Don’t Speak Up - January 13, 2025
• It’s Not a Secret, We Just Don’t Talk About It - January 11, 2025
• Myth, Objectivity and the Subjectivity of Language in Safety - January 11, 2025
• There’s Nothing Better than a Blitz - January 11, 2025
• Linguistic Non-Intelligence with Safety Non-Experts - January 11, 2025

PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.