You Have No Idea What Goes on in the ‘Real World of Safety’

This is the old chestnut that gets thrown at me every time someone in the safety world has no counter argument.

And what is this Real World of Safety?

I was on a tier one construction site yesterday (with 300 subcontractors on the job) and a project to run for 2 years. The Safety Manager called me in because he doesn’t know about ‘safety culture’ (his words) and doesn’t know what to do about how to influence safety on site. He is an experienced safety person with 20 years in the industry. Hmmm, how funny, why would he call in for advice from someone who doesn’t know ‘the real world of safety’?

The same day I responded to 10 emails from people seeking advice on safety from all over the world (Romania, Mongolia, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Poland, South Africa, UK, Sweden). All those who contacted by email with over 25 years of experience in the safety industry. Why would these people seek advice from someone who doesn’t know ‘the real world of safety’?

Then there’s the 25 highly experienced people currently doing my iCue training across Australia from construction, mining, government, power generation, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing and heavy industrial. Why would these people seek advice from someone who doesn’t know ‘the real world of safety’? Perhaps the 300,000 people who have downloaded my books want advice from someone who doesn’t know ‘the real world of safety’?

Then I though more about what this phase means and it’s right. I don’t want to know about the ‘real world of safety’.

I don’t want to know about the endless mindless check-listing that masquerades as safety. I don’t want to know about the excessive systems and bureaucracy that bogs down the industry. I don’t want to know about the narrow behaviourist engineering mindset that plagues the industry. I don’t want to know about the dumb-down dehumanisng that Safety throws at good workers who find safety an embuggerance. I don’t want to know about this world of telling, that doesn’t know how to care, help or listen. I don’t want to know about the bullying and victimisation that Safety throws at people in the name of zero. I don’t want to know regulation and legislation heroes who don’t know the law. I don’t want to know about the dumb down WHS curriculum that convinces people they have been educated.

I don’t want to know any of this ‘real world of safety’ but there is an alternative in SPoR (https://safetyrisk.net/whats-the-alternative-to-traditional-safety-spor/ ) for those who want to know a better world of safety.

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Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health - September 23, 2023
Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk - September 23, 2023
Embodied Enactivity in Safety - September 21, 2023
The Meaning of Myth in Risk - September 20, 2023
Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety - September 20, 2023

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.