Recession: an opportunity to review the costs of safety and get more for less
There seems little doubt that we
are sliding into recession, with order books down and
cash drying up. Clearly, it is a time to cut back on
wasteful, unnecessary and unproductive costs, but our
advice is also to think about the opportunities there
may be.
If you sincerely believe that safety, quality, training
and similar nurturing activities in your business are
only a compliance cost, we are not here to persuade
you otherwise. Chances are that you would already be
in panic, slash and burn mode anyway.
If, on the other hand, you see safety as an integral
part of your business health and vitality, then you
might just be interested in taking an opportunity for
a fresh and productive look at where you are and where
you’d like to be, so that when you emerge from
the pit you will be equipped and firing on all cylinders.
Do you have a clear idea of what you expect from your
safety system?
- What are the key activities that make a difference,
and which ones can be left out?
- Are the people tasked with coordinating safety focussed
on activities that are aimed at specific objectives,
or are they window dressing, doing popular but pointless
things and filling out bits of paper?
- What is each bit of paper for? Does it make anything
clearer, or is it clutter?
- How deep is the delegation? Safety is a shared responsibility.
One person can’t make it happen.
- How much time do people with responsibilities for
safety spend in their office, instead of leading?
(We don’t mean safety coordinators, we mean
line managers).
- Are employees engaged in the process? Do they share
responsibility? Do they know what you mean when you
talk about basic safety concepts? If not, you have
probably wasted what you have spent so far, and your
managers are opting out too.
- How participative is your employee participation?
Do you delegate tasks to employees, implement the
changes they suggest? If you have a high turnover
in the safety committee, it indicates disengagement,
and it’s probably curable.
- Do you lead by example? Half an hour a month spent
by you in the work areas asking questions is worth
all the manuals and paperwork in the world.
- When you review safety systems, do you rubber stamp
and roll them over, or do you ask “what is this
achieving”, “is it relevant”, “could
it be shorter and have more impact”.
- Do you put effort and resources into things that
actually make the place safer, in other words, continuously
reducing the risks? When was the last time you reviewed
the hazard register?
- Have you considered partial outsourcing of your
safety function? Pay only for essential advice and
high level coordination to assist with your planning,
review and processes. You do the day to day leadership.
- Are you heavy on manuals and templates just to satisfy an auditor? We recently audited an employer who passed the ACC audit with about 10 pages of paper. People don’t read manuals, so the more brevity, the better. You can just use flow charts if you want.
In summary, if you have let
the safety system run itself “on the side”
for more than 12 months, it’s getting tired, irrelevant
and costly and may be dead already. If your people with
safety responsibilities spend more time doing spreadsheets
than achieving specific objectives, you are pouring
money down the drain. If employees haven’t heard
of “eliminate, isolate, minimise”, the messengers
(and you may be one of them) are not doing their jobs.
Most of all, if you don’t know what you expect
of the safety system, and you don’t personally
make that very clear, out there where the accidents
happen, then you have a rudderless ship.
All these things can be cured. The safety system can be turned into a sports car instead of a gas guzzler and in the process, money can be saved while accidents are avoided.
(Nov 08)
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