10 minutes of my thoughts on how some of the things we do in safety can have the unintended consequence of increasing risk by disempowering the very people we are trying to empower (and something I think we can do about it).
Humanising Health, Safety and Risk
rosa antonia carrillo says
Dave, your video post is quite timely. I’m with you all the way. The people taking the risks don’t have the authority to make the safety rules. The people with the authority to do that are primarily concerned with compliance and meeting there due diligence responsibilities. So the goals of the workers and employers are at odds. I don’t know if you had a chance to read my book that Rob Long helped me think through. It’s called OHS voices from the resistance, and I reveal my research that a lot of people in this occupation view themselves as helpers. So imagine my surprise when I heard you say, what if we viewed ourselves as helping. It would be great to chat at some point as I work through how to deliver a message that is intelligible to the folks that are embedded in the physical safety, compliance world.
Sherralynne Smith says
I’m just started doing some study with the The National Psychosocial Safety Network, based in Australia, which has clearly highlighted how Safety often dominates conversations and over-rides conversations being had in this space. iCue has taught me how to “be present” when someone else is talking and allow the person to speak freely about their experiences/ideas. I agree wholeheartedly with Rob. Safety needs to get off it’s self-proclaimed pedestal and start listening to those people who seek our support – not ridicule.
Rob Long says
Consciousness of power and ethico-political accountability is one of the great silences in the safety world. With a bankrupt curriculum and so much safety mythology about objectivity, no wonder it harms so many.
One can tinker around the edges and go softly softly but that doesn’t work. UNless there is curriculum change, there will be no change in the industry.
Sherralynne Smith says
Thanks for your post Rob. The training I’m participating in is a pilot programme. I’ll share some information with you privately. Offering a different point of view and creating a new curriculum – especially in the psychosocial safety space will hopefully help to drive the change that is so desperately needed in Safety. Let’s hope that those of us who have taken the opportunity to learn from you, Matt, Craig, Nippin and Pedro will be given the opportunity to start the conversations that are so necessary for change. Do I think this will happen? I have my reservations as there are so many working in Safety that believe that BBS, HOP and Safety I/II are the best in today’s market.
Rob long says
A bold effort Dave but unfortunately the industry shows no interest in studying the nature of power. Understanding power is the beginning of understanding all activity as ethico-political.
But when we see the likes of Hopkins recommend that Safety has the right to over-ride others and their culture, we know safety is bankrupt. Or when the AIhS release a chapter on ethics with no reference to power we know that Safety doesn’t want to think about what it does. There’s nothing quite as dumb and unprofessional as a chapter in the AIHS BoK of non-knowledge.
Goodness me, no one in safety could even tell me what the 10 types of power are!
So, I think you are a few light years ahead of the game with this one. Until the safety curriculum takes ethics seriously and understands politics, it will continue to be an amateur s$it show in love with its own power.