The $6 Billion Question

How do we change the fact that most workers lack the mind-set that safety is part of their ‘real job’? [That's the $6 billion question]... so writes the Australian blog, Safety Concepts. You'd think it would be the easiest thing in the world to motivate employees about: after all, it is their own lives and limbs we're talking about. Their own health and wellness - and given the human instinct for survival and selfishness, Workplace Safety should be an easy sell.

But it isn't. Obstacles to staff being keen about safety could include:

• Boredom. If safety videos, lectures, handouts are dull, then knowledge doesn't stick. The effort to stay awake will supercede any valuable learning.
•  Peer Pressure: Employees who are "macho" (in their own eyes) - "I don't wear safety vests, that's for sissies!"
• Denial: "Accidents happen to OTHER people, not me."
• Ignorance: Many people aren't aware just how many people are seriously hurt or killed on the job every day.

The Chronic Safety Offender

The Safety Concepts blog does a great job summing up some of these employee characteristics that block real learning:

"...staff have ingrained attitudes after years at their jobs and believe the whole ’safety issue’ is a waste of time. It’s difficult for Health and Safety Officers when staff view them as ‘trouble makers’ or ‘drama queens’. In some cases workers think important workplace safety systems are a joke..."

We know this can be such a big issue... In fact, we've written the article, "How to deal with the Chronic Safety Offender" in the Employers section of this website. However, let's face it, it could be a really tough task to reprogram employees who have dismissed safety as inconsequential for years, maybe even decades.

Get 'em While they're Young?

So, our best bet in getting staff to be keen about safety may well lie in youth - specifically teens and 20-somethings just entering the workforce. Does that task fall to...

• Educators - working safety into the cirriculum in fun and innovative ways
• Parents - teaching good, lifelong habits so often starts at home
• Employers - putting energy, time and other resources into creating new and innovative safety training materials and methods that work with the way Millennials learn (so there better be lots of gaming and/or web-based stuff in there!)

 We want YOUR ideas. How do we Make Safety Matter - to everyone, young or old, in the workplace??

(Hopefully, I didn't lose your interest half-way through this blog post ;)