Originally posted on September 27, 2013 @ 10:12 AM
Isn’t it marvelous, SAI Global recently advertised new editable SWMSs (Safe Work Method Statement) for download.
Now you don’t have to really assess risk, understand the job or know how to be safe, it’s the ultimate in cut and paste. So when the inspector comes, all the columns will be ruled right, the right words will be in the right place and then you can just go ahead and ‘get the job done’, marvelous. A godsend for ‘tick and flick’.
This of course is not the only source of templates, there are plenty of companies out there who will do all the paperwork for you, for a tidy price. And why do people want templates? Because the time they tried to do a risk assessment on their own, they were marked like a primary school child and corrected for spelling mistakes or sequence. I have some SWMS attempted by subcontractors that were taken recently on to a tier 1 construction site and it is embarrassing what was handed back. It wasn’t embarrassing for the subcontractor, the tier 1 company marked these SWMS like a primary school assignment, in red pen. What a bizarre place the safety industry has ended up when a tool, intended to be a thinking tool, has been made an idol by the religion of rules.
This is where we end up when we make the tool for thinking, the product and an ‘end’ in itself. Rather than understand the meaning of the tool, the purpose of the tool or the dynamic of the tool, it’s now come to this that the tool has become the new idol, let’s worship the tool. The fact that high profile agencies encourage and reward this practice is astounding. It is the ultimate in ‘tick and flick’. Enculturated ‘tick and flick’ is one of the most dangerous practices in the workplace. What is more dangerous than appearing to understand risk and how to manage it, when in reality no assessment of risk has been done. Not only this but, ‘tick and flick’ culture encourages people to dismiss the value of thinking tools and encourage fraudulence as good. And of what value is such a SWMS in court, nothing. The moment the court finds out that the SWMS is meaningless, the company will be judged on the reality of culture not the fake paperwork and cosmetics of safety.
I have been on construction, mining and energy sites this last month and each time I come on site I have been asked to sign on to a one page document an induction of sorts to get me on the job. At the top of the page were quoted the numbers for the SWMS relevant to the job, one was at a high-risk facility. When I asked about the relevant SWMS I was brought out a folder with hundreds of pages and shown the corresponding documents. I was told just to sign the paperwork otherwise the job couldn’t get done and I couldn’t get on site. When I actually asked a few questions about risks on the job it was clear there had been no such conversation. On one high-risk facility I asked if I could bring my phone on the job and was told no. I then asked them if that instruction was in the SWMS, and it wasn’t. However, the SWMS did tell you how to get out of your car and walk to the gate. How absurd has this all become.
With such dominance of ‘tick and flick’ in industry and delusions about the validity of paper in court, we should probably use new language about SWMS. We now need to talk about ‘real’ SWMS, ‘tick and flick’ SWMS or cosmetic SWMS. If you want a cosmetic SWMS, it’s now easy to buy one.
Dr Rob Long
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Rob Long says
Peter:
https://safetyrisk.net/the-mis-naming-of-safety-as-a-profession/
https://safetyrisk.net/how-not-to-be-professional-in-safety/
https://safetyrisk.net/a-professional-ethic-of-risk/
https://safetyrisk.net/dot-to-dot-safety-for-non-professionals/
https://safetyrisk.net/poisoning-the-professional-waterhole/
https://safetyrisk.net/communicating-professionally-in-risk/
https://safetyrisk.net/three-lessons-in-how-to-be-unprofessional/
https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-professional-myth/
https://safetyrisk.net/keep-counting-every-time-you-dont-achieve-your-goal-thats-professional/
https://safetyrisk.net/not-a-professions-bootlace/
https://safetyrisk.net/data-cannot-drive-professionalism/
Peter Clark says
Robert
I have been in the safety industry and worked in a number of industries for over 30 years and seen a lot of change not always for the better. I was exposed to the videos about Risky Conversations after attending a session with Greg Smith. What can I say but absolutely fascinating. It confirmed so many of my own observations and frustrations with where Safety is heading and how Companies invariably is manage it.
An interesting story is the evolution of BHP’s Safety (before BHP Billiton) from an Incident in Whyalla where they steamed 3 contractors and met a magistrate who chastised them for trying to defend an undefendable position claiming they were not responsible for a sub-contractor. Enter Dupont take 5 and then the full Dupont system. Over the years watching and then working as a HSE contractor building their mine plants and seeing people die on their sites and trying navigate their rigid HSE systems and requirements. Then they ask why are we killing people – simple answer – your systems have grown to a point that no one can neither understand or follow them so therefore no one follows them. And when they do strip them back which they did they lost so much of the valuable information that did exist in them because it was done by people who didn’t understand why it was in there in the first place. Not rocket science really.
Zero Harm – your kidding yourselves when humans are involved.
Companies that mandate gloves to be worn at all times in hot humid environments. I have yet to see a pair of gloves that has prevented a serious injury.
Online training and Inductions. JHA’s and SWMS do not even have a risk assessment in them as you noted above and it has been a long time since I have been asked to actually teach a worker how to do a risk assessment
Unfortunately it is very hard to challenge these issues for all of the reasons yourself and Greg raised in the Risky Conversations videos.
I am 64 yrs old and still have a fire in belly to keep people safe and help the organisation to do the right thing but it is quickly dwindling. And companies are more and more looking for a Safety person who will do what they want and say, not someone who knows and has seen how it can all go wrong.
Anyway I enjoyed the Risky Conversations series and have been sharing the link with colleagues I know still trying to make a difference.
Regards
Peter Clark
HSE Professional
Rob Long says
Thanks Peter for your excellent overview and analysis.
BTW safety is NOT a profession.
Peter says
Rob
How is Safety not a Profession. I heard you in one of the Introduction to SpoR videos refer to yourself and the class as “professionals”, I also heard Greg later in the series also refer to the group as professionals. I have chosen to work as a safety person, advisor, coordinator, lead, manager (Never a safety Officer). I have spent time on many jobs for many companies working out and seeing what works and what doesn’t, I have undertaken studies to improve and expand my knowledge.
Your profession is Social Psychology and Risk, also Teaching. How is what a Safety person does not a Profession also?
Rob Long says
Peter, using the word ‘profession’ or calling oneself ‘professional’ doesn’t make it so. Many of the essentials of being a profession are absent in the safety industry for example, any consideration of ethics in education and training. The absence of any language of ‘helping’ or ‘caring’ is also telling. Safety never refers to itself as a ‘helping’ profession indeed, it is a policing and regulating and telling activity.
I have worked in many professions and also taught in them and the lack of any focus on people skills, communication skills, critical thinking and education skills in safety makes it so bereft of the basics needed to be and act professionally. I would never compare the preparation of teachers, nurses or social workers to that of safety, there is simply no comparison. This is why things like zero and the brutalism of persons is common in the indusry.