"Whatever you do! Don't think about pink elephants!"
When someone says this to you, the first thing you're likely to do is... think about pink elephants. Why? Because when you're told to suppress one thought, that thought will invariably pop into your mind immediately.
While your subconscious mind does what you want, it has trouble with "don't". Your subconscious ignores that word! So when you say, “Don’t think about a pink elephant,” your subconscious deletes "don't” and the request becomes "think about a pink elephant.”
How we deal with safety in the workplace is a lot like the pink elephants. Instead of asking employees to think about a safe and productive facility, we tend to focus on the negatives. "Don't bend over like that...", "Don't drive over 10 mph", and "Don't operate the machine like this..."
This is not to say you should stop posting warning signs and holding safety meetings to avoid accidents. Those are important. But the problem arises when all the communication to workers is negative — based on the fear of a rarely occurring serious accident — and reactive — based on incidents that happened in the past — and seemingly reflects a failure across the board.
And this stems from company leadership.
For most companies, safety has a negative connotation stemming from the "Don't" mentality. Of course, this is understandable because company leadership is tasked with reducing the number of injuries at their facilities. But is there a better way?
This is the way...
Safety requires an organization-wide commitment at all levels and it must start at the top. Safety needs to be as high a priority as production. Every employee of the company must be committed to the process of detecting and eliminating high-risk situations before injuries and accidents occur. And they must be responsive to employee risk detections and suggestions by dedicating time, personnel, budget and training to bring about change and make processes safer.
When the environment of a company demonstrates that all employees are empowered to speak up and even act on dangerous situations, contributions are rewarded, and continuous learning is fostered by everyone those attitudes are pervasive. All the workers will see a culture of safety actually exists.
A long-term commitment
This culture will take time to develop. But the effects create so many other benefits than just reducing the total number of accidents in a facility.
Yes, you'll have fewer major injuries and that is a huge advantage because you're keeping workers on the job and not interrupting production.
You're also reducing the number of claims you have because safety is a high priority. The higher the claims you hove the more your company pays in premiums.
The employees will notice that you care just as much about their safety when you communicate positively and put safety systems in place. Workers will be more motivated (and won't have to take up the slack for injured employees) to hit their production numbers.
And those workers will be more loyal to your company — you'll retain the talent you already have and most likely be able to recruit even more talent when you can demonstrate your culture of safety.
Avoid the don't... and do make a difference
Leadership can be most effective when they go beyond the numbers of reducing injuries and maintaining production quotas. By being more proactive, rather than reacting after accidents or injuries occur, and developing systems and processes that focus on safety you'll avoid high turnover, improve productivity, and lower the number of incidents (which cuts costs) and most likely even improve the quality of products you make. It may take a while but it is truly worth it to avoid the "Don't" methodology and become more positive at every level of your business.