Develop an Eye for Safety

Want to know the surprising truth about most OSHA inspections?

The findings usually don’t come as a surprise to management. Unsafe jobsites don’t just happen overnight. Chances are you and your supervisors already know if your jobsite is safe and which safety standards are not regularly practiced.

Since business owners set the pace for their companies, how do you make safety a daily priority at your jobsite? The answer comes in the form of a question. The most important habit you can develop in supervisors and employees is developing an eye for safety, and the best way to do this is to ask, “What do you see?”

When I started a supervisory position at UPS, I went on a facility visit with my manager.  As we approached the building, he stopped the vehicle a block away and asked, “What do you see?”

It was early morning and the facility was still dark, but I could see several items that posed safety and security threats: an unattended trailer with an open door outside the safety fence, a burnt out security light, and loose trash that had blown into the fence.

As we drove closer, he stopped the vehicle. “What do you see?” he asked again. It was a question he would ask me several times during our visit. And it was a question that has changed the way I approach any jobsite.

As founder of Johnston & Associates, a Franklin, TN.-based safety and workers’ compensation consulting firm and creator of the M.O.S.T.® Safety System, I’ve had a chance to personally tour hundreds of jobsites. I can usually tell at first glance when a jobsite is unsafe. In fact, I know an OSHA inspector who keeps his pencil in his pocket if a jobsite looks safe. If it looks unsafe, he immediately sharpens his pencil.

Developing an eye for safety is easiest when you begin by looking for big things. I was visiting a client’s jobsite for the first time, and the owner was very nervous about what I might find. I told him that we would not point out the small things during this initial visit, but that we would start with the big things. As we toured the facility, I saw a forklift being repaired by three employees. The forklift was being lifted and held up by another forklift with a driver at the controls. Three employees were underneath making a repair without jack stands, blocking or cribbing materials. “What do you see?” I asked the owner. “Three employees at risk for a crushing accident,” he said.

Of course, three employees at risk of fatality is a big thing. After you’ve developed an eye for the big things, it’s easier to start noticing the small things. A roofer was working on a jobsite when a nail was struck by a hammer and flew into the air. This roofer was not wearing proper eye protection, and the nail struck him in the face, leaving him blind in that eye for the rest of his life. A good safety-conscious supervisor would have noticed right away that his worker was not wearing proper eye protection.

When visiting jobsites, ask your supervisors, “What do you see?” This question turns every supervisor into a safety supervisor and lets supervisors do what they do best: see problems and anticipate hazardous situations. When you improve the ability of supervisors and foremen to see, they become more valuable production supervisors, quality supervisors and safety supervisors. Supervision is basically what it says it is, having super vision-the super ability to see what is going on.

As you develop an eye for safety in your supervisors, encourage them to instill this habit in their employees. Safety shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of supervisors. All employees should observe, correct and protect their jobsite. When supervisors see a safety hazard-rebar without a cap, for example-rather than pointing it out and barking out orders to fix it, have them ask employees, “What do you see?” This question trains employees to be safety observers.

One of our clients is a beer distributing company in Nashville, TN. Supervisors and employees make safety a vital part of their daily job. The safety director once told me, “Peer pressure has helped drivers be safe, because if they don’t follow safety standards, the rest of the gang will give them a hard time.”

The interesting thing about OSHA safety regulations is that they are often common sense.  In the OSHA General Industry Standards, there is an obvious statement warning that “hollow spots and woodpecker holes can reduce the strength of a wood pole.” One OSHA requirement states, “Employees shall not work on scaffolds during storms or high winds.”

Common sense should also tell you that safety standards are not an extra step to getting a job done. Safety standards are the only way to get a job done. In fact, the word “standard” means “normal.” Hard hats should be worn because they keep workers safe, not because OSHA is at the gate or the boss is making a jobsite visit. Wearing hard hats should be normal practice, and if one employee forgets that practice, everyone should notice right away.

Whenever I see an employee put on safety glasses when they see me or their supervisor, I always think, “They’re doing safety for the wrong reason. It should be communicated that the motivation for safety is ‘to protect me.’”

As you and your employees develop an eye for safety, it’s important to remember what causes most accidents. Ninety-five percent of all employees will say accidents are caused by carelessness and not thinking.

Johnston & Associates’ M.O.S.T. ® System is a behavioral approach to safety that combines the two ideas of being method oriented in our actions and applying safety thinking at all times. The M.O.S.T. ® System is designed to eliminate carelessness and not thinking. The System prevents 90 percent of accidents and injuries by getting employees to use proper job methods and to always maintain safety awareness.

We’ve discovered that one benefit of using safety thinking is that it has a ripple effect.  Using fall protection will make the worker think about safety in other aspects of the job.  Wearing seatbelts on forklifts motivates drivers to think about safety while driving.  When a worker is using safety thinking, the worker will take fewer risks. In fact, risk taking should not be an accepted practice at your jobsite.

I met a farmer who had, over the years, developed a habit of taking chances by leaving his tractor running in neutral and his hay bailer engaged in gear. From time to time, he would get down and attempt to remove sticks or debris caught in the intake rake. He knew this was dangerous, but it was quicker to remove the debris this way than to take the time to do it correctly. After a tragic accident the farmer said, “Over the years I lost three gloves in that baler before it got me.” On that fateful day, it not only got his glove, but it pulled off his arm at the shoulder. How many times do you see employees taking risks and say nothing about it? One of the best definitions of safety is “reduction of risk.”

As a construction business owner, you choose your company’s priorities.  How and what you relay to employees will determine what they recognize to be important.  You never want people to do a job without priorities.  Company priorities often include production and quality.  But safety should also be a priority; it has a tremendous impact on your bottom line.

Develop an eye for safety and spread that vision to your employees.
 
Construction Business Owner, January 2006