We do a fine job researching, investigating, uncovering root causes and lamenting work-related disasters. The government often forms commissions (think Deepwater Horizon or the NASA shuttle explosions or the BP Texas City refinery). Corporations in this day and age will create web sites to update customers on its recovery and relief efforts (think GE with the Japanese nuke wreckage or BP with the Gulf Oil spill). CEOs will tell newspapers how post-accident their companies are mending their ways with reinvigorated safety programs (as the new Massey chief did in a recent Wall Street Journal article.) Certain tragedies of grievous proportions come to define a stage in the evolution of workplace safety - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the world’s worst industrial catastrophe, the Bhopal chemical factory explosion in 1984.
In contrast, positive achievements in workplace health and safety get scant attention. Vertical industries such as the brick industry, the pulp and paper industry and others annually hand out awards to their safest companies. But the news doesn’t travel far beyond the industry’s trade magazines or association newsletters. For years, behavior-based safety consultancies have organized annual user group meetings where hundreds if not thousands of clients enthusiastically discuss and display their safety-boosting, moraleboosting successes. But except for perhaps a few case studies, the talk never leaves the meeting room.
OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) is probably the biggest platform for safety success stories. Several thousand worksites fly the VPP flag, the most widespread public symbol of safety achievement. The annual meeting of the Voluntary Protection Program Participants’ Association (VPPPA) does a superb job of shining the spotlight on line workers, safety committee members, who step to the microphone and proudly explain how their facility became an elite safety performer.
The VPPPA’s annual conference program is chock full of ads from companies proudly pointing to their safety excellence. It becomes part of their brand, their reputation, who they are. But can you even imagine such advertising in Fortune or Forbes?