Caught and Fined before Fatality, Serious Injury, Loss occur:

Worker, Caught by MOL Inspector, Given Significant Fine for Safety Violation: 

What behavioural change has to take place to prevent this RISK?  How can we educate in Organizational Change Management/Leadership? To properly eliminate the thinking process leads to:   http://bit.ly/1nDLBqI 

If a worker, at 15 - 20 Meters above grade, takes a leap, unprotected from a fall, what thoughts are going through this person's mind?  How can we, as Health and Safety Leaders and/or Management/Governance, change the mindset of: "it won't happen to me!" "It will only take a second!" "Oh I only did it once!" and the long-standing; "We have always done it this way!"...  Behaviour that lead to serious injury and fatality are still commonplace in industry, not only in construction, but in many high hazard industries due to a personal level of "Risk Appetite".  This is only the worker who was caught.  What percentage of the workforce does this worker belong to?  Anything over 0% is completely unacceptable.  We have to discover and propagate the required educational and instructional tools needed to arrest thought pattern leads to this behaviour.  Until we completely eliminate this thinking process we will have workplace fatalities attributable solely to worker negligence.  

Have you identified your Organization's "Risk Appetite"?  Where do you set the bar?  And how do we communicate the standards we expect our workers to abide by?  What we publish as our 'Corporate Culture', and what really happens on the shop floor need to align.  It is well to make a commitment to "Zero" incident, no accidents, Loss Prevention.  How do we properly educate our workers, contractors, partners?  How do we communicate this effectively and measure outcomes?  No incidents for x days? x weeks? x years?  yet our "Risk Tolerance" may increase as our record ameliorates.  What Risk Management tools can we use to instil proper behaviour in our members?  How do we properly communicate this? Where is the onus on Management and Governance to properly demonstrate care and understanding of our workforce, members, partners, contractors etc.....  Setting a good example is a start.  Properly defining Corporate Culture which will instil a Safety Culture while maintaining and increasing productivity and return (ROI) are the new goals of Learning Organizations. 

Working towards Sustainable, Resilient Organizations and the mindset we have to create, in a Learning Organization, is the wave of the future.  With Globalization and a multicultural and ever diverse workforce we will need to create new lasting tools to sustain Resilience in Organization.

Paul E. Marquis CHSC CSO

+1.604.889.7140