Originally posted on July 11, 2017 @ 3:49 PM
When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
There’s nothing more reliable in safety than a blitz. This is because people don’t care about safety, are dumb about safety and want to hurt themselves. There is nothing more obvious to Safety than the effectiveness of a blitz, this is why they have one every year and this guarantees that nothing changes and everything remains the same.
Why have a blitz? It can’t possibly be that the regulator doesn’t have a clue about culture. It can’t possibly be that ‘dumb way to die’ marketing is ineffective or that ‘target zero’ doesn’t work. It can’t possibly be that policing approaches don’t work or that the approach of a blitz lacks sophistication, risk intelligence or maturity. So here is the latest news brought to you fresh from the SIA: https://sia.org.au/news/updates/nsw-construction-industry-safety-crackdown.html
Now if you think this blog sounds like a blog you read years ago, you would be right: https://safetyrisk.net/theres-nothing-better-than-a-blitz/ That’s because a blitz is so effective that we have to keep on repeating them until all the people in industry stop being careless about safety. You see, people go to work each day for the sole purpose of wanting to hurt themselves and that is why a blitz is needed to remind them that the regulator is out to ‘get them’ and that only they know how to be safe. A blitz makes people care about safety apparently. A blitz shocks people out of complacency and all of a sudden they realize they didn’t care about safety at work, and once the regulator has visited bingo, their culture changes. That’s why there will be a blitz in 2018 or maybe even later in 2017 because the last one was so effective.
And what does the Executive Director of Safework NSW say: ‘Sydney’s construction and infrastructure boom is no excuse for neglecting worker safety’. Of course, its all about neglect. What a great message to get out to everyone.
So in the latest blitz what is the emphasis? Let me guess? Ah, systems. ‘Effective safety systems do not have to be expensive or complicated, and being busy is no excuse for risking workers’ safety’. How neglectful of me, I forgot that culture is really systems. Perhaps I need a blitz to help me get the definition of culture right. We need more systems and solve everything with systems. We need better checklists to do better ‘tick and flick’ on the systems we got after the last blitz. Most important of all we need ‘zero tolerance’. Ah yes, that works, just like the last zero tolerance campaign and blitz. Let’s get in a heavier dose of behaviourism than we had last blitz so that we can have a heavier blitz in 2018. So glad we are having another ‘crackdown’, ah Safety, you do it so well.
Dr Rob Long
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