• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Safety Risk .net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

Discover More on this Site

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE RESOURCES
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY & RISK
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Covid-19
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Covid-19 Returning to Work Inductions, Transitioning, Safety Start Up and Re Entry Plans
    • Covid-19 Work from Home Safety Checklists and Risk Assessments
    • The Hierarchy of Control and Covid-19
    • Why Safety Loves Covid-19
    • Covid-19, Cricket and Lessons in Safety
    • The Covid-19 Lesson
    • Safety has this Covid-19 thing sorted
    • The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time
    • How’s the Hot Desking Going Covid?
    • The Semiotics of COVID-19 and the Social Amplification of Risk
    • Working From Home Health and Safety Tips – Covid-19
    • Covid-19 and the Hierarchy of Control
  • Dr Rob Long Posts
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no HIERARCHY of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • Quotes & Slogans
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
    • When Slogans Don’t Work
    • 77 OF THE MOST CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
    • 500 BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2020
    • 167 CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
    • COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
    • Safety Acronyms
    • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
    • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
    • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
    • Safety Slogans List
    • Road Safety Slogans
    • How to write your own safety slogans
    • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
    • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
    • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
    • Safety Slogans for Work

The Dehumanization of Safety

June 2, 2014 by Dr Rob Long 6 Comments


The Mechanistic Worldview and the Dehumanization of Safety

By Dr Rob Long

3d robot construction workerThere should be no great surprise to anyone regarding the number of trade offs we have made by accepting the mechanistic worldview of safety. The narrative in safety over recent history has shifted away from humanizing people to the continued process of dehumanizing people in safety. The champions of dehumanization of safety have been: the regulator, the legal profession, safety associations, political parties, the OFSC, engineering and the many technological-focused groups. Unfortunately, the mechanized worldview remains the dominant worldview in safety. The mechanized worldview (individually and combined) tends to shift the focus off humans in safety to objects in safety, or maintains itself as the only way to manage uncertainty. We certainly know this ourselves, we feel it in the way the systems and its agents treat us. The mythology associated with the mechanistic worldview (and its trade offs) creates the delusion that safety and risk are ‘managed’. In reality nothing is ‘safer’ rather, risk gets shifted, reframed and relocated rather than mitigated. The following table should assist in understanding this process:

Mechanistic Trend Dehumanising Outcome and Trade Off
Excessive systems The more systems are seen as solutions the more powerlessness humans become within that system.Humans respond in a desensitized way through ‘tick and flick’ and diminished ‘thinking’. Then when mistakes are made, the next solution is developed by adding to the system.
Focus on data The accent on data creates the perception of risk as scientific and objective which puts it in conflict with subjectivity of risk and uncertainty. Data is elevated as objective when it is not but rather meaning to the data is attributed.
Focus on engineering The heavy focus on engineering in safety creates a loss of adaptability, creativity, innovation and validation of imagination. Engineering cannot respond to the complete nature of human decision making but is limited by engineering thinking. Sorry to disappoint the engineers but humans cannot be understood as objects or machines.
Focus on technology As safety continues to be preoccupied with the love of ‘technique’ the trade off increases risks of people working alone as human labour is viewed as expensive. The love of ‘technique’ assists the view that human fallibility is a problem.
Behaviourist focus The behaviourist worldview understands people as sum of inputs and outputs. Behaviours becomes confused with culture and observations as policing. Behaviourism becomes confused with social psychology.
Cause and effect thinking The misattribution of cause and effect creates a focus on black and white attribution rather than the diversity of choice under a lack of optimal knowledge. This creates the delusion that decisions are made on the basis of rationally complete knowledge.
Focus on ‘damaging energies’ Under this focus risk and safety perceived as the release of energy rather than the decision making of humans. This approach creates the delusion that decision making has been considered. Once a focus is made the vision filter then it creates ‘safety arrogance’ in ignorance of any other view.
Focus on hazards This is the continued focus on objects-as-safety. This creates the delusion of hazard hunts as effective as if imagination in human decision making is not required. Rather than thinking about the uncertain, unknown and the unexpected, the focus creates the delusion that named hazards diminish risk.
Focus on zero and numerics Safety is reduced to counting and injury data and is attributed a cultural value where no connection between injury data and culture exists. The continued focus on numerics shifts the focus off people and reduces thinking to ‘people as the problem’ and numbers as absolute. This creates a climate of intolerance and blaming fostered by absurd dehumanizing slogans as ‘all incidents are preventable’.
Excessive checklists and audits (against systems) The ‘dumbing down’ of thinking to lists creates a dependency on lists and the (uncreative) creator of those lists. The tool then become the methodology. Thinking outside or beyond the checklist is limited and discouraged. Conversation and listening are disregarded as valuable tools for risk thinking and the object (SWMS, JSEAs) becomes the outcome rather than the object serving as a thinking tool.
Binary oppositionalism Safety is viewed as a ‘black and white’ process, a fundamentalist exercise rather than a process that requires imagination, adaptability and adjustment in judgment. The binary worldview limits thinking so that one can’t think of the ‘grey’ between ‘black and white’ understandings of the world.
Emphasis on forensics, science and disconnectedness As safety pushes more to being dictated by a regulatory and mechanistic focus, people become desensitized to thinking within the safety space. This creates a culture where safety people become hated because they respond in such a dehumanised way to workers. Rather than disown the subjective space safety people should reject the objectivity of safety as attributed not real.

 

So what can be done about this trend?

1. The first step in reversing this trend is understanding how the mechanistic worldview works and being aware of how acceptance of this worldview feeds its appetite.

2. The second response to the mechanistic worldview is to keep its methods to a minimum. Minimalism gets rid of the mechanistic dynamic and then one’s focus and energies can be devoted to humanising the safety space.

3. The third thing to do is to not accept the mechanistic view without question. For example, the idea that due diligence is some measured mechanistic process one can demonstrate to others. Even in the regulation it is clear that due diligence is a subjective process and has as much scientific, mechanistic properties as ALARP. Zero needs to be challenged, dissonance needs to be presented to those who have accepted the legitimacy of the mechanistic worldview.

4. The fourth action to do is to shift the safety discourse on to a proper understanding of culture rather than confusing culture as systems and behaviour.

5. The fifth action one can take is to name the dehumanising process as it raises its head in meetings and espoused ‘safety speak’. Safety people should be always contesting the trajectory of initiatives rather than contributing to the ongoing mythology created by the mechanistic worldview.

This is only a start, there are many things safety people can do to subvert the toxicity of the mechanistic worldview and the way it dehumanizes the safety space. Make a start today and tackle this trend with some good open questions that challenge this trajectory and what it is doing to us all.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • The Less You See, the More Likely to Die - March 7, 2021
  • Safety at Risk - March 6, 2021
  • The Poetics of Resistance and Risk - March 6, 2021
  • Risk Without Faith is Not Risk - March 5, 2021
  • Curriculum and Bodies of Knowledge as Instructional Affordances - March 5, 2021
Dr Rob Long
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.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: ALARP, Robert Long Tagged With: checklists, dehumanisation, regulators, safety associations, safety engineering

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

Visit Count – Started Jan 2015

  • 21,739,435 Visitors

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join over 30,000 other discerning safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Bernard Corden on Risk Without Faith is Not Risk
  • Bernard Corden on Safety at Risk
  • Rob Long on Safety at Risk
  • Rob Long on Safety at Risk
  • Admin on Safety at Risk
  • Rob long on Safety at Risk
  • Rob Long on Risk Without Faith is Not Risk
  • Bernard Corden on Risk Without Faith is Not Risk
  • Site Safety NSW on 10 Reasons Why Safety Can Never Make You Happy
  • Bernard Corden on Silence, Power and an Ethic of Risk

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Featured Downloads

  • Electrical_Equipment_Risk_Assessment_v2.0-1.doc (7316 downloads)
  • SEEK-Brisbane-91011-Nov-2016-2.pdf (353 downloads)
  • Effective-Safety-Management-Systems.docx (5078 downloads)
  • National-Emergency-Risk-Assessment-Guidelines.pdf (1235 downloads)
  • How-can-the-ideology-of-zero-be-ethical_.pdf (165 downloads)
  • violence_checklist.pdf (779 downloads)
  • Lessons-I-Have-Learnt.docx (1910 downloads)
  • Blowin'-in-the-wind-03092019 (435 downloads)
  • Zero-to-HRO.docx (816 downloads)
  • Event Risk Management (405 downloads)
  • WHS-Legislation-A-to-Z-2012.doc (57664 downloads)
  • Covid-19 Re-Entry Considerations (4433 downloads)
  • Too-Much-Safety-eBook-Rev-01.pdf (1467 downloads)
  • Sample-risk-assessment-form.xls (26558 downloads)
  • Training-and-Development-Needs-of-OHS-Personnel-23.docx (2632 downloads)

Recent Posts

  • The Less You See, the More Likely to Die
  • Safety at Risk
  • The Poetics of Resistance and Risk
  • Risk Without Faith is Not Risk
  • Curriculum and Bodies of Knowledge as Instructional Affordances
  • Silence, Power and an Ethic of Risk
  • Dobbing, Culture and Risk
  • What Brand of Ethics is Safety?
  • Greater or Lesser Harm
  • The ‘Roots’ of Behaviour

Footer

AUTHORS

  • Alan Quilley
    • Heinrich–Industrial Accident Prevention
    • The Problem With ZERO Goals and Results
  • Bernard Corden
    • Covid 1984 – The Shake Hands Maskerade and Vial Diplomacy
    • AHH$ Covid$afe Chri$tma$ New$letter
  • Bill Sims
    • Employee Engagement: Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry?
    • Injury Hiding-How do you stop it?
  • Craig Clancy
    • Task Based vs Activity Based Safe Work Method Statements
    • Safety And Tender Submissions
  • Daniel Kirk
    • It’s easy being wise after the event.
    • A Positive Safety Story
  • Dave Whitefield
    • Safety is about…
    • Safety and Compliance
  • Dennis Millard
    • Are You Risk Intelligent?
    • Honey they get me! They get me at work!
  • Drewie
    • Downturn Doin’ Your Head In? Let’s Chat….
    • How was your break?
  • Gabrielle Carlton
    • All Care and No Care!
    • You Are Not Alone!
  • George Robotham
    • How to Give an Unforgettable Safety Presentation
    • How To Write a Safety Report
  • Goran Prvulovic
    • Safety Manager – an Ultimate Scapegoat
    • HSE Performance – Back to Basics
  • James Ellis
    • In search of plan B in workers’ recovery
    • What and how should we measure to support recovery from injury?
  • James Parkinson
    • To laugh or not to laugh
    • People and Safety
  • John Toomey
    • Who is Responsible for This?
    • Who Are Your People?
  • Karl Cameron
    • Abby Normal Safety
    • The Right Thing
  • Ken Roberts
    • Safety Legislation Is Our Biggest Accident?
    • HSE Trip Down Memory Lane
  • Mark Perrett
    • Psychology of Persuasion: Top 5 influencing skills for getting what you want
  • Mark Taylor
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • Enculturing Safety
  • Max Geyer
    • WHS Legislation is NOT about Safety it’s about Culture
    • Due Diligence Is Not Just Ticking Boxes!
  • Matt Thorne
    • It was the SIA until someone wanted to swing from the Chandelier
    • Common Sense is Remarkably Uncommon
  • Peter Ribbe
    • Is there “Common Sense” in safety?
    • Who wants to be a safety professional?
  • Phil LaDuke
    • Hey Idiots, You’re Worried About the Wrong Things
    • Misleading Indicators
  • Admin
    • Making Sense of Safety Management Systems
    • Happy New Year for 2021 and Theme
  • Dr Rob Long
    • The Less You See, the More Likely to Die
    • Safety at Risk
  • Rob Sams
    • I’m just not that into safety anymore
    • Social ‘Resiliencing’
  • Barry Spud
    • Barry Spud’s Hazard Control Tips
    • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
  • Sheri Suckling
    • How Can I Get the Boss to Listen?
  • Safety Nerd
    • The Block isn’t portraying safety as it should be
    • Toolbox Talk Show–PPE
  • Wynand Serfontein
    • Why The Problem With Learning Is Unlearning
    • I DON’T KNOW
  • Zoe Koskinas
    • Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

FEATURED POSTS

Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick

Heretical, Unorthodox and Sacrilegious Safety

Forecasting Safety

Social Psychology of Risk Workshop-Sydney

The Rational, aRational and Irrational in Safety

Social Sensemaking Available Now PLUS Free Share and Giveaway

Science and Acts of Faith in Safety

And the Dirty Word is – Fallibility!

The Shock of Homeostasis

The Less You See, the More Likely to Die

A Letter To The Editor

None so Blind as Those That Don’t Want to See – Due Diligence

Critical Thinking At Risk

Safety as a Knowledge Culture

Safety Aphorisms and Platitudes

The Colour of Safety

Making Technicians Not Helpers

Numerology and Psychic Numbing

And the Enemy of Safety is? … Humans!

Embodiment, Risk and Safety

More Posts from this Category

Paperwork

https://vimeo.com/162034157?loop=0

Due Diligence

https://vimeo.com/162493843?loop=0

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.