Page 12 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2017

SAFETY MANAGEMENT
Help the ‘Bulletproof’ Employee MaWke the Connection
Inspire conformance through influence, aware- ness, and definitively through the identification of the harmful and helpful biases we all have; some of them buried deep within us.
BY J.A. RODRIGUEZ JR.
hy is it that some workers are vigilant about protecting themselves while oth- ers, the bulletproof ones, are willing to take a substantial risk without a care in
the world? Somehow, bulletproof employees cannot see beyond their actions to the point of anticipating the reality of what can happen. Let’s focus on these employees and secure an understanding of who they are and how they rise to power; why they choose risky behavior; how they and we view the world; how we can influence their “unsafe” decision-making process; how to best approach them without making things worse; how our biases and inner values can impact our interpretation of event; how incremental ratio- nalization plays a role in the creation of bulletproof employees; how to effectively arm yourself and your organization with the tools needed to encourage “engagement by choice” through accountability and consequential leadership; how to approach this issue from a different perspective; and how to ultimately drive safety excellence in this regard by design. We will explore strategies that encourage these employees to make the right connection to the right behaviors at the right time, so they accept ownership and account- ability for their actions and their safety program.
The ultimate goal is to offer you the opportunity to think differently about how to be the sparkplug that ignites an active movement within your organi- zation where employees embrace change as a cultural norm through the power of leadership influence. We will reveal how you can ensure safer workplaces and empower a new era of change agents for occupational safety through the process of realization and strategy implementation.
Cause for Action: Jaw-Dropping Statistics
The National Safety Council (http://www.nsc.org/ JSEWorkplaceDocuments/JSE-Infographic-Printable. pdf) just published jaw-dropping statistics on the state of our nation regarding injuries and fatalities, the financial impact to the economy, and the benefits of enhanced employee engagement. These are “jaw- dropping” because NSC’s publication is not about the numbers, it is about the organizations and people in- volved and about the families impacted.
Considering at the statistics a different way, a worker dies nearly every two hours every day in the U.S. including on weekends and holidays and every shift. There are nine injuries every minute, one fatal workplace illness every ten minutes and four non-fa- tal workplace illnesses every five minutes. This means that every 90 minutes or so, a worker will likely not return home to his family, 810 workers will be injured,
The Bulletproof Employee
12 Occupational Health & Safety | JUNE 2017
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