Avocado toast has become all the rage at restaurants and on social media posts over the past several years. I eat it; it is delectable. You make it by toasting some bread, adding some ripe avocado and maybe some salt, and then maybe some tomatoes or sprouts. Easy, right?
Now, I want you to think of making this dish, but consider it from a safety angle. Avocado toast can be a hazardous dish to prepare. You must toast bread, which is a potential fire hazard, and you have to cut open an avocado. Unfortunately, people sometimes do this by holding the avocado in their hand, which can result in line-of-fire or knife-related cuts to their hands and wrists. In fact, these injuries are so common that they have a medical term – “Avocado Hand” – and account for thousands of emergency room visits each year.
You may be wondering by now, what does this have to do with utility industry safety and, more specifically, the topic of scaling the safety message?
When there is a task that injures thousands of our workers each year, we try to remove the hazard. Keep that in mind as you read the next part of this article. But first, I want you to do me a favor. Talk to your teenage child or your spouse about Avocado Hand. Explain that they shouldn’t hold an avocado in their hand when cutting it. Many of them will listen and cut it on a cutting board, keeping their hands away from the knife blade. Mission accomplished, right? We have trained some people to safely perform a specific task. But have we actually educated them as to why they need to do it this way? If we give them a different fruit or vegetable to cut, will they use the knife safely and apply the overall safety theory regarding the line of fire and hand injuries? Or will they default to what they know and are in the habit of doing? In other words, were the message and training scaled enough that they became ingrained in the culture of working safely?
A Common Issue
This is something many of us are facing in our industry. I spent many years at large utility companies where the safety culture was already established. You may be in the same boat, or you may find yourself in a position where you must create the culture from scratch. Regardless of what position you find yourself in, you may have asked the question, how do I change a safety program from one that is task specific to one that keeps workers safe regardless of the task?
When a workforce is already performing with a high level of safety, you might think this culture has already been achieved. Why reinvent the wheel if the numbers look good? But while you may have a successful safety record, you must consider whether the overall culture is too task specific, with the steps employees are taking on Task A not necessarily translating to Task B. This is where I went to work in my organization. We were safe when working on a specific task, but we left ourselves exposed when the task changed. Much of the time, we did not realize our exposures and hazards had changed and thus our mitigations also needed to change. We needed to operate more in the safety theory space. We needed to scale the message.
Scaling the Training
Scaling the safety messaging meant scaling training. Instead of selling the message of “if this, then that,” we started training using “when this, look for that.” Of course, this kind of change does have the potential to be dangerous, so it requires a lot of work and oversight; a shift in the safety theory of an organization can lead to events if not executed correctly. It takes a team to implement the change I’m writing about in this article. That team should consist of dedicated, passionate professionals who truly care about the workforce, training the next generation and working safely above all else. It takes commitment from operations, and it also takes relationship building within senior leadership. If an organization can align behind the idea of scaling the safety message this way, the results will almost certainly speak for themselves.
Admittedly, changing human performance is one of the most difficult things leaders must do in any industry, including ours. In the initial stage, there must be a concerted effort to build relationships and sell the new vision. But this first step isn’t all about talking. I promise you, if you try to sell your vision by doing all the talking yourself, you will fail. Before you begin to try to sell it, your vision must be informed by listening to your teammates and other leaders who have responsibility for employee safety.
As relationships are being formed and the vision is being cemented, training must also be implemented. I’m not talking about training of the end users or boots-on-the-ground employees at this point, but training of other leaders. I personally sat down with a member of my organization’s senior leadership and presented training that represented my vision. We talked through it, particularly the “why” behind it. He bought in. Today, leadership and safety move forward in one cohesive (i.e., not splintered) group. This is a vital step to properly scaling a safety message within an organization.
‘Arming’ the Trainer
OK, so, the vision is taking hold. Relationships are being formed. The company is moving forward cohesively. What’s next? ….
Read the full article and see photos on Incident Prevention’s website.
Article was written by Jeffrey Sullivan
