Is safety worth it?

treehumper

treehumper

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
Ridgefield, NJ
I received my latest issue of Fast Company magazine where I cam across a small article about habits. In it was an interesting tale about Alcoa and safety.

"The sluggish aluminum company hired Paul O'Neill as CEO in 1987, hoping he'd boost revenue. To the chagrin of investors, he chose to focus his energies on decreasing employee accidents, the result of unsafe work habits. O'Neill streamlined the company's production process to force cautiousness, and by the time he retired in 2000, Alcoa's net income had increased fivefold."


Interesting...

What's it worth to you?
 
If your employs are thinking you're trying to take of them of course their going to work more enthusiastically for you. What goes around comes around.
 
Heck yeah it is worth it!!!! of course I am bias, but having studied production numbers covering 3 to 4 years at where I work and comparing that to employee's habits and personalities and productivity, I can say with great confidence that Specifically when it comes to The Tree Care Industry, Pre-Madonnas and your super climbers are a waste of money and seem to be the most likely to get into a serious accident that costs everybody money.
A moderately skilled tree climber that works safely and shows up every day on time will produce a lot more revenue and cost you less money over the long run than an expensive super climber.
The best thing I ever accomplished as a safety manager was to convince the production workers that I would rather them shut down work for a couple hours so that I can run a forgotten hard hat out to the job site rather than they risk getting bonked on the head. Honestly, other than a couple trips to the doctor for Poison Ivey, we haven't had so much as a cut finger in over a year. Actually convincing the upper management to support this type of thinking was pretty hard and took even longer, but the improved production and almost complete absence of injuries over the last several years is what finally convinced them.
This also goes into that whole employee buy in like ADKPK was referring to. This is easy in smaller 20 or 30 person companies but in larger organizations like MEGA TRIMMER COMPANIES its hard to keep your finger on the pulse of the employees, and you have to rely more on your supervisors and managers to push this message which can depend heavily on that individual supervisors motivation.
I have seen it first hand in other large industries where the safety manager gets nailed for not making the work place safer when it actually had more to do with needing to shift the workers focus from profitability/productivity to a Safe work mind set being most highly valued which results in increased profits.
 
It is one of those cultural things. Without executive buy-in there will always be a battle to uphold safety. It is one of those "old wives' tales" that it is counter-productive. Seeing this story about Alcoa really helps to sell it to the top and then have it supported throughout the organization. I really shudder when I see the lack of safety in the public sector here in NJ. Usually in the smaller municipalities where the workers are Jack-of-all-trades and the supervisors run things like their own little fiefdom.

I am amazed that the town attorney doesn't have something to say about it.
 
This is true leadership. It is a very rare quality especially at senior management and executive levels.

I am lucky to work for a company that never presses for speed at the expense of safety. We are expected to work quickly but not to do 'hero' stuff just to prove something.

I respect the hell out of fast climbers and the world's best competitors, but that kind of athleticism and acrobatics is for competitions, not work.
 
There are so many examples of how safety can be a profit center. Just from a money perspective like Paul O'Neill found. then there is the other part that is a harder sell to the bean counters.

There should be a responsibility to the workers by the company. this isn't always the case though.

Production, sales and safety seem to have conflicts. There's no reason that they can't all be happy though.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/163/the-power-of-habit-charles-duhigg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom