Page 27 - Occupational Health & Safety, August 2018

be done before the first injury occurs, not as a follow-up.
■ New products are introduced when possible, and employees are given a choice of appropriate PPE for the job to facilitate comfort: However you want to introduce and discuss these new products is great. Some employers leave them out in break areas; others provide at tailgate or toolbox talks as prizes. Others provide sample prod- ucts at structured meetings with feedback. Do whatever works to get the products into the hands (and on the faces) of your workers. Many companies are going the ex- tra mile and providing PPE such as safety sunglasses, a faceshield for home use (weed eating, lawn mowing, pressure-washing houses, etc.), knowing that reduced injuries at home mean increased work time. It’s an- other benefit for your workplace, although hard to track. Employees learn safety integ- rity by using PPE regularly.
Safety is becoming less of a “thou shalt” bully and intimidation environment and more into team and looking at the entire picture of the employees, the corporate cul- ture, and long-term goals. It’s about time, in my opinion!
Those workplaces that continue to use only the negative reinforcement and go light on the education and leadership will cultivate drone mentality in the workplace and a failure-to-report accident culture. When employees are afraid of being writ- ten up for the slightest infractions, it breeds the insecure employee who does not com- municate with management or safety rep- resentatives, and the workplace will suffer for this.
Successful management of vision pro- tection or any safety program is making sure all employees feel the ownership of all the elements and know they have a place at the table to make needed changes be- fore the accident happens. I have long en- dorsed having a partnership and promot- ing a positive safety presence instead of dread. Safety should be the eyes and ears of upper management and be in the posi- tion to provide honest, up-to-date analysis and data to a management that will listen. We still have work environments where safety is “I’ll call you when I want your input,” and this defeats our goal of preven- tion. Our workforce is changing with bet- ter-educated, more-informed employees who know the codes and also their rights. Gone should be the days of “us and them”
on shop floors, and our role as safety pro- fessional has moved into analysis rather than dreaded corporate snitch.
The downside is management who do not listen even though our experienced advice and overall goal is exactly the same . . . protection in the workplace, sending employees home uninjured, and reduc- ing loss. You have to decide how to best balance the need of the program and the wants of both management and employ- ees at your facility—taking a stand for the ethical service and management. What you do with this knowledge and how you expose everyone at the facility and the
method/tone you use will make or break your program. Make a list of what efforts you are making to promote a positive, benefit-driven image of your vision pro- tection program.
The choice is yours; your employees’ vision depends on it. We have to be proac- tive through transparency in effort and in deed.
Linda J. Sherrard, MS, CSP, is Safety Con- sultant with Central Prison Healthcare Com- plex, NCDPS in Raleigh, N.C., and is the for- mer technical editor of OH&S. She can be reached at ljohnsonsherrard@nc.rr.com.
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