Page 28 - OHS, November/December 2024

T R A I N I N G : F A C I L I T Y S A F E T Y
Training for Real Safety, Field Safety
Successfully training employees in safety requires adding some patience and fundamental
nuances into your approach.
BY ROBERT SLOCOMB, CHST
requires you to up your management style. You’ve never had
Let’s say you just got hired to a higher Safety position, one that
this big a spotlight on you before, so you’re nervous, especially
since you heard your predecessor never dented the injury rate.
Clearly, you were hired to “turn safety around.” You can han-
dle the new expectations, but the fact that you have inherited
depressed staff members in a company full of diffi cult employees
troubles you. Th e job just began, and you’re already doubting your
superpowers.
Every day, managers take jobs they doubt they were built for.
If you were honest during the interview and didn’t fudge your re-
sume, then trust Human Resources. Safety is a people job; your
interviewers obviously trust your people skills. So, fi rst things fi rst,
explore why this company’s employees are so diffi cult. Perhaps it
has to do with how management rules.
Workers Are Not Troops and the Role of Safety Manager
Is Not a Command Position
Start by interviewing workers in the fi eld. Go “boots on the ground”
every day, but leave any prejudices and preconceptions behind.
Open your eyes and ears and show a respectful attitude, no mat-
ter what you see. Be positive. Learn and remember people’s names.
Ask lots of questions about job processes, then watch and learn. Get
a wide picture of those you serve. Remember, you’re looking for a
disconnect between fi eld and management. Since this includes un-
derstanding your own staff , bring them along and make them useful.
Generally, to most people, safety is the neglected child in any or-
ganization. Th at’s not necessarily a bad thing, coming from the bot-
tom. You have a few surprises up your sleeves — you are out to build
worker trust by resolving a whole logjam of unworkable issues, and,
in doing so, you plan to place safety legitimately inside this family.
Management vs. fi eld disconnects aren’t new. Th ey begin and
end with misunderstandings about goals and expectations. One
side performs the work, and the other side rules decision-making.
Th ere is plenty of room for division, so delve deep. You are on the
road to understanding this fi rm’s unique dynamics so you can
guide your department to a more benefi cial position.
Work as Imagined vs. Work as Done
Safety works best when practiced from the angle of the worker.
“Work as imagined” is work conceived from an offi ce chair. Here’s
a signifi cant disconnect. If management can’t understand the cre-
ative rigors of how their workers work, then nothing fl ows, and
safety isn’t even a consideration, let alone an aft erthought.
Work as done is what you are watching when fi eld workers
work honestly in front of you. Th e standard operating procedures
and job safety analyses go out of focus, corners get cut, and unsafe
practices abound. Yet this is work as done whether safety is here or
not, and it’s precisely what you’re here to fi x.
Patience is the greatest virtue of any teacher. Be that teacher. Ad-
dress risks with workers by explaining their unintended consequenc-
es. Correct people without leveling crass judgment on them. Your
mission is to understand why workers do what they do; then you will
see where you and your staff can train away vintage misconceptions.
Aft er all, to err is human, right? So, always take the high road —
choose retraining over punishment and idle threats. In doing so,
■ Be genuine about creating that safe and meaningful future
you speak of daily.
■ Adults need to know why they should waste their time lis-
tening to you. As hard as they were to earn, don’t depend on your
credentials; just speak to what you know.
■ Disrespectful people are unsafe people. Work at gaining
their trust, then retrain.
■ Care, compassion, and empathy go a long way.
■ Safety is not a commodity, nor is it negotiable.
■ Attitudes aff ect a company’s production spirit and product.
Dismantle attitude.
■ No one comes to work to perform poorly. Everyone comes
to work to be engaged.
■ So, engage those who need a greater sense of purpose in
their work.
I cannot say that I came up with this, but like a lot of safety spe-
cialists, for years, I was training the wrong side of workers’ brains.
We trained the brain’s neocortex — the side governing rational
thought — the side that gets OSHA’s rules and regulations. Th e
part of the brain that governs feelings, emotions, anxiety, and com-
passion is the limbic brain. Th e limbic responds to sensations, such
as rewards, warmth, or cold. Th e limbic is personal, reacting at the
‘local’ level. Th is is why we ask workers to remember their family,
recalling how an injury, or worse, leads to a life-changing future for
those they love. Go limbic so your messages stick.
Train workers by speaking the language they understand.
Avoid convoluted ideas and infl ated words. Go local. Learn the
meanings of work words. Th ere are workers who judge trainers by
how scarred their hands are, and how confi dently they carry them-
selves, all with the intention of gauging the trainer’s authenticity.
Train only what you know.
Finally, train against the current idea that safety is a personal
choice. Instead, remind workers that work teams and their families
depend on them. Will you achieve all the successes you want? Will
those you serve fi nally hear you? Th ere might be a full mind and
body reckoning, but aim for your workforce, realizing how unsafe
they’ve been. It’s possible that you’re the fi rst safety person they
hear this message from now that you’ve got them listening.
Robert Slocomb is a Plant Safety Specialist in Metro Washington,
D.C. Aft er more than 45 years working in both residential and com-
mercial construction, he feels the need to give back, adding “Safety
training is really just about getting people to seriously embrace more
common sense.”
28 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024 www.ohsonline.com