The case of a worker being crushed between hydraulic feeders and that of a welder electrocuted on a hot Townsville day would seem to be two separate, unlinked tragedies.
On first glance each case exhibits a mix of the safety “red flags” in differing measures: lack of a system, lack of paperwork for managing a task (that could be deemed medium or high-risk) and a lack of training and or supervision.
Yet, on inspecting the judgments of these incidents, in the context of a ream of other judgments, I am noticing a common thread – a lack of Safe Work Practices.
The common “code”
Safe Work Practices are not just systems, nor are they paperwork …and neither are they just training. They require all of these to be in place, but they’re more than the sum of these parts.
They’re the way work tasks are broken down, assessed for risks and carried out as a matter of course.
Safe Work Practices go to the heart of what aware365 is working hard to create: a safety culture. They are a basic set of rules relative to work tasks. They’re the way employers and workers manage safety on jobs on a day-to-day basis – a common language or ‘code’ if you like sports.
Let’s look back at these two cases. In one instance, a procedure wasn’t followed, resulting in the tragedy… yet not enough had been done to mitigate the risk. In the second, the employee was carrying out a task that was not part of his job description. It would seem in both cases, the link is that there was no firm safety practice in the mind of the employee – there was no common ‘code’ or safety language.
In the last 6 months I have steered my client base towards the use of Safe Work Practices.
The aware365 snapshot of safety
At aware365 we look at taking a “snapshot” of what your workers do and breaking those things down into easily understood directions that can be referenced by worker and supervisors at any time – a common language or code that enables them to make the decision on what is and what is not safe to do.
Having a defined set of policies is vital… however I hardly ever see situation where there is a prosecution with reference to the failure to have policies in place – in almost every prosecution you will see a reference to a lack of safe work practices.
Next time we are talking let’s talk about setting up a knowledge baseline for your workers.