Workplace Safety Culture

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Do you have what it takes to work for Elon Musk? The eccentric Tesla CEO is currently hiring for a number of positions - including a safety official - at Boring Co., the firm he founded in 2016. The billionaire is encouraging people to join the company, which digs tunnels to decongest large city centers and solve traffic issues.

A flexible workplace allows employees to decide when and where they want to perform their work. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the workforce and the trend of flexible work is becoming more and more mainstream. Flexible work will likely persist even in the post-pandemic era.

Behavioral safety has had a significant impact on making the American workplace safer in recent years. Observing behaviors can help to identify unsafe acts and conditions and provide a tool to help correct both. 

To improve their safety, outcomes some organizations advocate "everyone is responsible for safety." The thinking behind this is that it will create a universal mindset in their workforce to actively engage everyone. The fundamental problem with this thinking is that it is not practical to hold a group accountable for individual behavior. 

Anger is on the rise across U.S. society. The Covid-19 pandemic is an obvious contributing factor. A 2020 global study found healthcare professionals were roughly 50 percent more likely than other community members to be harassed, bullied or hurt as a result of the pandemic. 

Preventable injuries culminate from a series of sequential events, as represented by five dominos. The first represents the task or situation, followed by some faulty worker decision, resulting in the unsafe action, which leads to an accident and the inevitable injury. By tipping the first domino all tend to fall, and by removing some of the intervening domino the accident can be eliminated. Hence the belief that workers decisions or actions are the primary cause of accidents.

Today, there are approximately 1.2 million women employed in the US construction industry, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Women still account for only 11 percent of the construction industry overall, however.

Employers play an important role in engaging employees in healthy lifestyles, and research shows that employers who invest in the emotional health of their workforce see a return on that investment with improved safety performance. In fact, mental and emotional health, as it relates to worker safety and productivity, is one of the hottest topics being discussed in board rooms, human resource departments and executive offices across industries. 

There are many parallels between exceptional safety leadership and sports. It takes proper planning and execution to be a consistent winner. Great leadership is great leadership, regardless of the context. Here are some lessons learned from the sports world to improve your own safety leadership.