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The IASP Safety Philosophy
In industry, business, and government workplace safety programs are based on one of three principles: regulatory compliance, monetary savings, or ethics. Those whose programs are based on regulatory compliance are concerned with avoiding fines and citations, and base their safety decisions solely upon existing safety regulations. Those whose programs are based on monetary savings are concerned with reducing their cost from employee injury, illness, and death. Those whose programs are based on ethics are concerned with doing whatever is necessary to provide a safe workplace.
The NASP champions this philosophy in its operations and production of safety training and certification courses. The three key components of the IASP Safety Philosophy are explained below.
Regulatory Compliance
Many employers feel that regulatory compliance and workplace safety are the same thing. An army of "safety consultants" market their services by encouraging employers to fear regulators, which only exacerbates the problem. Most of the world's workplace safety regulatory agencies make it clear that their regulations are only minimum requirements. In most cases, OSHA turns out to be a toothless tiger, willing to change "willful" citations to "unspecified" citations so employers can avoid criminal charges and of civil liability. Willful violations that result in the death of an employee may be reduced to "undetermined."
Violating a legal regulation and violating an moral or ethical principle are not the same thing. In fact, reducing ethics to little more than compliance may lead to more non-compliance than if ethics were the guiding light for workplace safety. "Compliance" means not transgressing the limits defined by law. Business and society need regulations and laws along with enforcement. Compliance is a good thing, but compliance is not ethics and compliance does not guarantee a safe workplace.
An exclusive focus on laws and regulations restricts our attention to the edges of the playing field. Cross this line and you are busted. But if you play the game by always working as close to the edges as possible, you are likely to stumble or sneak across the forbidden limit. Ethical principles of workplace safety sometimes do spell out "law-like" boundary conditions through written policies and procedures, but these are based not on what is legal, but on what is right. Ethical boundaries are usually drawn well back from those legal edges we might otherwise trespass.
The ethics question is "what is right, good, and moral?" and that usually exceeds minimum regulatory requirements. A true facility safety culture can not be established on a foundation of regulatory compliance alone.
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Monetary Savings
One safety manager who advocates using monetary savings as a foundation for workplace safety programs writes: "We were not hired because our companies were altruistic about providing an environment where employees did not get hurt. We were not hired because our companies were enamored with safety. However, we were hired because it makes good business sense. We were hired to reduce the costs of workers' compensation, the medical costs resulting from injuries, and the costs of potential OSHA citations."
Many employers do genuinely care about the safety of their employees and see workplace safety as an ethical responsibility not a cash center. The cost of injuries is a viable consideration and an excellent tool for a safety manager to use in justifying expenditures for workplace safety. But a safety program based solely upon saving the employer money is sorely misguided. The writer of the above needs to accept his/her responsibility to educate their employer to the fact that safety is much more than just money, it is an ethical responsibility. A true safety culture can not be established in your facility on a foundation of saving money alone.
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Ethics
At its core, ethics holds up a positive vision of what is right and what is good. It defines what is worth pursuing as a kind of guiding star for our decisions and actions. Organizations that base their workplace safety on ethics will spend their energy articulating and pursuing positive principles, values, and virtues. Observing regulatory boundaries and reducing expenses from injuries are important, but they are secondary to the pursuit of the right and good.
We salute those in the business of regulatory compliance for their substantial contribution to workplace safety. We thank those who gave us the tactic of using monetary savings to help justify our safety budgets. But we affirm the higher purpose of our ethical and moral responsibility to be driven by what is right and proper to protect employees from death, injury, and illness in the workplace. This is the only foundation upon which a true safety culture can be established in any workplace.
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Beyond a Systems Approach
A systems approach to workplace safety provides a means for us to determine specific needs of our workplace and our employees, as opposed to regulations that are designed in a broad and general fashion. Systems thinking complements our natural tendency to break things down into manageable parts. Systems thinking explores expansionistic thinking, an approach that first considers the context of a problem before breaking it down into its component parts. A systems approach to workplace safety will include comprehensive workplace safety audits and thereby meet and exceed government safety regulations. The systems approach provides a site specific approach to workplace safety but not a comprehensive approach. A systems approach to workplace safety does not provide a comprehensive approach to workplace safety because it does not address the additional hazards or weaknesses created by the system itself. The law of unintended consequences in the system itself can be seen as a an example of looking beyond the commonly accepted bounds of a "Systems Approach" to workplace safety. Therefore, the creation of a comprehensive safety culture within an organization requires that we step outside of the system, and evaluate the whole.
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Behavior Modification
Behavior modification is defined as many different things, depending upon who is defining it. From the standpoint of the creation of a comprehensive safety culture within an organization, behavior modification means changing the manner in which the human element of our organization works. This is accomplished largely through effective training, but also requires administrative controls. Effective behavior modification within a comprehensive safety culture must apply not just to laborers and operators, but to all human links in the chain that is the "system".
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Eight Principles of a Safe Workplace
Safety is an Ethical Responsibility.
At its core, ethics holds up a positive vision of what is right and what is good. It defines what is "worth" pursuing as guidance for our decisions and actions. Workplace injuries and deaths are too often seen in the abstract as statistics. But when it happens to someone we love, we suddenly see the reality of the horrible pain and suffering and its widespread effect. It is our ethical responsibility to do what is necessary to protect employees from death, injury, and illness in the workplace. This is the only foundation upon which a true safety culture can be established in any workplace.
Safety is a Culture, Not a Program.
The combined commitment and participation of the entire organization is necessary to create and maintain an effective safety culture. Every person in the organization, from the top management of the corporation to the newest employee, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries.
Management is Responsible.
Management's responsibility is to lead the safety effort in a sustained and consistent way, establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance, and providing the resources necessary for a safe workplace. Managing safety is the responsibility of every supervisor, from the first line supervisor to the Chairman of the Board.
Employees Must Be Trained to Work Safely.
Awareness of safety does not come naturally; we all need to be trained to work safely. Effective training programs both teach and motivate employees to be a productive part of the safety culture.
Safety is a Condition of Employment.
The employer must exhaust every reasonable means to lead, motivate, train, and provision employees to maintain a safe workplace. But, in the event the employee refuses to take the actions required to work safely, the employer must utilize a system of progressive discipline to enforce safety requirements and ensure the cooperation of the employee or the removal of the employee from the workplace in order to protect the employee and their coworkers.
All Injuries Are Preventable.
Sometimes accidents occur without the apparent indication of fault or blame. But there is always some chain of events that occurred leading up to the accident that, had we realized the eventual outcome, someone could have interceded. The fundamental belief that injuries are, by their nature, preventable is a catalyst that encourages us to prevent injuries.
Safety Programs Must Be Site Specific, with Recurring Audits of the Workplace and Prompt Corrective Action.
The purpose of the workplace audit is to discover and remedy the actual hazards of the site before they can injure workers. Recurring hazard analyses, comprehensive inspections, and aggressive investigation of accidents or near misses, discover potential workplace hazards and identify weaknesses in safety plans, programs, policies, and procedures. Safety regulations and generic safety programs are not sufficient means to discover hazards because they are not specific to the individual workplace. A safety audit program is site specific. Whenever a safety deficiency is found, prompt action is required both to overcome the hazard and to reinforce the message that safety is a priority.
Safety is Good Business.
Reducing workplace injuries and illnesses reduces the costs of workers' compensation, medical expenses, potential government fines, and the expenses of litigation. Effective workplace safety is not an expense; it is an asset.
A properly managed safety culture based on these Eight Principles of Workplace Safety will produce employees who participate actively in training, identify and alert each other and management to potential hazards, and feel a responsibility for their safety and the safety of others. Accepting safety as an ethical responsibility demonstrates a sincere concern for each employee which establishes the foundation for an effective safety culture.
