As a safety speaker who speaks on workplace safety, I consider my mission not only important, but lifesaving. Do you have a workplace safety mindset? Do you encourage a workplace safety mindset in your team members?
We’re All Adults Here
The last thing I want to do is to “gross anyone out,” but as a workplace safety speaker who started his career on the manufacturing floor, I was witness to horrific accidents: awful truck accidents; burns from scalding food; broken legs from falls; terrible lacerations from blades and such.
The amazing thing about the companies where these accidents occurred is that they all had safety posters, safety slogans and safety talks.
I am a safety speaker who believes that unless everyone in the company has a safety mindset, bad injuries will keep happening. Unless everyone in the company is mindful about safety then no one is safe. By everyone, I mean everyone from the guys who load the trucks to the CEO. In fact, I once saw the CEO of a food company get a nasty burn from an uncovered steam pipe. By the way, no workplace injury is “fun.” They are serious, require medical treatment and lead to a loss of days, a loss of pay and may result in a permanent disability.
Another Myth about 2020
We might think that 2020, being “the year of the pandemic,” was a year that a “safety mindset” was top of mind. It wasn’t!
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):
“The incidence rates for all 10 occupations [categories] were higher in 2019 than in 2018.”
The 2020 accident incident rates were nearly identical to 2019.
- I have chosen just three categories to show the injuries per 10,000
Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers (approximately 350 incidents per 10,000 FTE)
- Construction laborers (approximately 250 incidents per 10,000 FTE)
- Stockers and order fillers (approximately 150 incidents per 10,000 FTE)
Don’t think of these accidents as bruises or blisters, but fatalities, massive injuries and bad falls and burns.
Research shows that virtually everyone of these accidents not only could have been avoided, but their co-workers, bosses and employees saw “the handwriting on the wall.” For example, a food-oil spill that wasn’t cleaned; a driver with a substance abuse problem; a careless worker not using eye protection.
Research shows that without a safety mindset in the company culture, it is a virtual guarantee that an accident will happen. The BLS statistics consistently report that carelessness caused by a lack of on-the-job mindfulness, leads to employees taking greater and greater risks.
Unless we are aware and mindful in the workplace, a hundred safety posters and all of the “award-winning” safety slogans in the world won’t stop a catastrophe from happening.
It is our responsibility to make sure that everyone on the job returns home to their loved ones. Anything less, is not practicing a safety mindset.
Book Mike Hourigan, Workplace Safety Speaker today, for a virtual or in-person presentation on having a safety mindset, contact Mike at (704) 875-3030 or fill out the form below.
