Harriman Oyofo: Business Sustainability through Safety
Get to firm grips with SAFETY; do not jeopardize your people, assets and the environment at work!
First word: These are hard times so every cent has to count much more than ever before if the business must see the next day. It’s time then to cut out the nice-to-have little extras and face reality. Therefore, go for sustainability by chucking non-productive arguments out of the window with both hands. This is no time for frivolities: SEPARATE Fallacies from Facts. That’s the only way the business will make it through these hard times and stand you in good stead in the times ahead. Get to firm grips with SAFETY.
#Fallacy: Safety is Everybody’s Business
Fact: Well, not quite. Safety can be everybody’s business only if properly structured. It becomes everybody’s business only when individual roles, responsibilities and expectations, RREs, are clearly defined for all. For a start, it has to be managed as an integral part of the business for the benefits to become manifest. There must be management leadership to provide direction and resources, supervision, organization, communication and employee buy-in for things to work as planned. Only then can one say with some degree of certainty that Safety Is Everybody’s Business in the organization or company!
Fallacy: Safety is Common Sense
Fact: If it was solely commonsense that pivots safety, how come there are thousands of workers killed or maimed each year with trillions of naira worth of property damaged at the same time? Would anyone rightly say therefore that all those involved had no commonsense? No, fact is safety has to be grown and nurtured as a culture, a workplace way of life, to secure the safety of assets, people and the environment.
#Fallacy: Money Spent on Safety is Avoidable Waste
Fact: Nothing could be further from the truth. Experience and research show that for every N1000 spent on safety, up to N100, 000 is saved. For instance, a machine operator on a production line has his hand crushed in the machine trying to clear product sludge from the work surface. The entire production line is stopped for 3-hours to enable immediate rescue of injured, repairs/replacement. What do you reckon is the true cost to the company beyond the immediately visible costs N100 000, N500 000 or N1.5m? Heard of the proverbial iceberg theory? Take a wild guess.
#Fallacy: Safety is for Big Companies. We’re a Small Operation!
Fact: They say the bigger they are the harder they fall, true. But in safety, the opposite is readily true also. Consider a large organization with several operating units across the country under independent management teams. Say the above incident happened in one of their units. The ensuing production loss and other negative effects will be confined to the affected unit, while the rest of the organization actually profits from the incident by way of lessons learned.
Now consider the case of a single entity Small Operation: the cost of this single incident may actually spell its demise because of lack of capacity to recover. Still think safety is expensive? Try accident!
#Fallacy: Accidents Only Happen to Bad People and Bad Organizations
Fact: Accidents happen to all people, good and bad. But they don’t have to happen, they are caused. Accidents happen because of what we do or fail to do. That includes all players in the chain - management, supervision and employees. The tripod must stand in equilibrium or it falls. If employees and management do not do what they are supposed to do namely, follow procedures as approved or do not know what to do ie inadequate training, then something will surely go wrong at the end of the day.
#Fallacy: We intend to pay our People (our Employees) Very Well; They Won’t be Susceptible to Accidents
Fact: Adequate reward or compensation has its place in the scheme of things. In fact you are required by law to pay government minimum wages of which non-compliance could land you in hot water. But safe employee performance is not solely dependent on good wages. Every employer is expected to provide their employees with a safe place of work, safe systems of work and safe tools for the work! Approved wages or reward is embedded in one of those elements. To prevent accidents, you must have a well articulated plan to manage every aspect of safety in your organization. People must know what their roles, responsibilities and expectations of them are. They must not only know what to do but when to do it, with what, where, why and how? Expecting people to perform a task correctly and safely without proper training and the requisite skills is asking for the impossible.
#Fallacy: Workplace Accidents are as a Result of Ill Luck
Fact: Nothing could be further from the truth. Workplace accidents happen as a result of unsafe conditions, unsafe acts, and management oversight. It has been said that 80% of workplace incidents are due to unsafe acts unsafe behavior as against 20% for unsafe conditions. Consider this: everything is safe for as long as there’s no interface between man, machine and the environment. In other words, no workplace accidents happen if an operator does not switch on a machine to perform a particular task in a particular environment or setting. Trouble only starts when a human being steps in to make things happen and soon enough something happens due to human error to change the otherwise stable state of things and we say there’s been an accident! If there are no errors there would be no workplace accidents therefore ill luck has nothing to do with it.
#Fallacy: We have Safety Gadgets or PPE so we’re not worried about accidents
Fact: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is designed to protect user against particular hazards but they do not prevent accidents from occurring. They’re worn simply to mitigate the outcome or severity of an occurrence or protect against probable future occupational ill health as a result of long exposure. So PPE provision is only part, but not the entire story. It is obligatory for the employer to provide the exposed employee with the appropriate, approved PPE as well as teach him/her the correct way use them for maximum effect. Ill-fitting or improperly adjusted PPE affords the user no protection whatsoever. For example, say one kg weight object (tool or material) fell through a height of 10m, landing on the head of worker wearing a hardhat tilted to one side instead of squarely on the head as recommended by the manufacturer. Would it serve the purpose intended? To be effective a PPE must be worn correctly and properly in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. PPE abuse is dangerous to the user and their use is for protection ONLY and NOT prevention of accidents.
Harriman Oyofo is CEO, Mann Associates Ltd., Nigeria.
