I recently received the following inquiry: “We're getting ready to perform safety coaching sessions with some of our frequently injured employees. Do you know of anyone who might have a script to outline the dialogue?”

When Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis resigned her position, the talk became what might happen to OSHA’s planned Injury/Illness Prevention Standard (I2P2). Secretary Solis had announced this initiative in early 2010. The stated purpose was to require employers to establish a plan that would prevent violations of OSHA standards and that would protect workers from violations of their workplace rights.

If you’ve made even the most cursory read of my articles and blogs you probably already know that I don’t hold much stock in Behavior Based Safety (BBS).  I believe that except for the odd statistical outlier nut-job, nobody WANTS to get hurt and unless they were designed by the Marquis De Sade you processes aren’t intended to hurt people.

Recognition for doing things correctly seems to be a lost art.  Over the years, I have assessed perception surveys for hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of employees.  As I tally the results, recognition for performance of doing things right is the lowest scoring safety management process. Interestingly, discipline (i.e., correcting people when they do something wrong) scores as the sixth lowest of the 21 safety management processes measured by the Caterpillar Safety Services statistically validated survey. 

Senior leadership is an easy target for most any complaint. Politicians, hourly workers, organized labor, front-line supervision and middle management all seem to blame ‘rich, uncaring upper management.’

The unsafe workplace costs a lot of money. The financial magnitude of expenses incurred in operating an unsafe workplace must be understood. This examination of the true costs associated with poor safety uncovers how far they extend beyond simply counting the cost of safety glasses or wages paid to the safety department.

It’s my sense that sequestration will happen, and that it will last for about two months. After that period, the pain for Congress and the impacted public – defense and non-defense alike - will be too great.

Being a Safety Advisor (OSHA) is not popular. Bosses hate you because you cost them money. Workers hate you because you nag them about earplugs and safety glasses. Everybody hates you because you are forever chasing compliance — chasing company compliance with Acts and Regulations; chasing worker compliance with site rules and practices; chasing, chasing, chasing.

In the U.S. at any given time, 20% of the population is serving in the role of caregiver for a loved one – and not always enthusiastically. Based on family dynamics and the cost of assisted living and nursing facilities, many families choose to share the role of caregiving for a loved one until such time that the loved one needs greater ongoing medical oversight than the family is capable of providing.