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Articles Written by Our Instructors
Article #1
How Much Did This Accident Cost?
By
Kenneth W. Hutchins
Instructor/Consultant, Industrial Truck Safety
After fifteen years of instructing forklift operators and safety managers, I am still amazed at the lack of foresight and planning provided by business leaders, supervisors, and the employees across this nation when the subject is safety.
Many companies give good lip
service to the topic, and talk about safety being a number one priority
with their company. But walk through their facility and you are probably
following the guy they sent out ten minutes ago to cover up as many
safety issues and violations as possible.
This guy rushes through the
warehouse, stockroom, or other varied offices yelling out “Put on your
safety glasses”, “Put on your hard hats”, or “Check your area, the
Safety Guy is here.”
This is the game we play. You
assume that the Safety Guy doesn’t see it, Most “Safety Guys” act like
it does not happen because they do not want to lose their job, their
client, their contract, etc.
Guess what? We see it, it is
real, it is dangerous, and your employees, their families, your
customers, your business, and you will eventually pay the
price!
Well I am one of the “Safety
Guys” and so is everyone working under the roof where your business is
located.
I am not afraid to let my
clients be aware of the issues that I see when I visit their
facility.
The reason I am not afraid is
that I made a decision the day I opened the door to my
business.
I decided that human health and
human life was more valuable than any manufactured product, any person’s
ego, any contest, goal, or competition that companies sometimes play to
feel good about their effort in safety.
While we play, we focus on a
specific area of safety and during the work day we walk blindly past
dozens of hazards but they do not show up on our checklist, competition
form, or goal worksheet.
While we play, we either fail
to hear the warnings given by our employees, our vendors, and even our
supervisors, or we fail to notice the deafening silence of employees,
vendors, supervisors, and yes, even the Safety Guy because they are
afraid to speak up.
If you are guilty of creating
an atmosphere of fear, laziness, laxity, or machismo where everyone
tries to best everyone else in stupidity, wake
up.
Accidents don’t have to
happen.
To the Business Owner, President, General Manager, Boss, Or Top Dog:
Safety Is Not A Cost, Safety Is An Investment!
You have taken the time to
interview, background check, and hire your employee. As time goes by
this person begins to gather knowledge. At first, they can just locate
the time clock, lunch room, rest room and at the end of the day, the
exit to the parking lot.
But as time goes by, they learn
your policies and procedures, they can locate product by stock or sku
number, they become more efficient, more confident, and require less
training, guidance and direct supervision.
Why then, being a reasonably
intelligent business person would you throw away the time and cash
investment you have in this person to save the cost of teaching them to
work safely.
Why do you want to start all
over again with a new person that lacks these
skills?
Could it be that you are giving
your human resource personnel, job security? If you keep hiring, they
are secure in their employment.
Can’t be that easy, I know,
your supervisors don’t have enough to do, they need to spend some
quality time with a new employee to fine tune their training
skills.
Wait, that’s not it either, you
want to show your generosity by spreading the company’s
wealth.
Your get to pay your new
employee, while your injured employee survives on workman’s
compensation.
You like keeping your insurance
company busy paying the bills for the injured
employee.
You get to pay your supervisor
to train the new employee when they could be conducting your business
today.
You get to pay your attorney to
sort the entire mess out as it occurs.
If the accident is bad enough,
you or another designated person gets to spend some one-on one time with
an OSHA Compliance Officer.
You get to pay any fines issued
by OSHA or spend time fighting the fines, (you get to spend money doing
this as well).
But let’s not just pick on the
Business Owner, President, General Manager, Boss, or Top Dog. There is
enough blame to go around.
To the Warehouse Manager, Dock
Manager, Superintendent, or Production
Manager.
You Saved A
Dollar And Spent One Hundred Thousand
Dollars!
You needed the new guy today,
that training session can wait, It is just a waste of time
anyway.
You needed the new guy today,
because the last one got hurt doing something he should not have been
doing, wonder how that happened?
You needed the new guy today,
it doesn’t matter if he has a “deer in the headlights look” when you
tell him to do something, He will get better, we
hope.
The new guy asked when his
safety shoes would arrive that were ordered for him, just tell him to be
“real careful” until they get here. If we make it another week without
an accident, the boss will buy lunch for
everybody.
You needed the new guy today;
it is really hard getting things done when they keep making everybody go
to these safety things!
But let’s not forget the
employee themselves.
To John or Jane Doe, the Crew,
Joe or Jeannie Blue Collar, YOU!!!
This is what this is all
about…
You ignore the safety signs
because you see them everyday.
You don’t use your safety
glasses because they are hot and
uncomfortable.
You moan about your pay then go
visit the guy or girl who through their own negligence just cost the
company hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You make statement like, “they
have plenty of money, it doesn’t hurt the company, or that’s what they
have insurance for.”
Well let me clue you in, if you
can do better, then you should. But don’t be part of the
problem.
If business owners do it right,
they get taxed for the privilege.
If they do it wrong, they get
taxed, fined, and sued!!!
Add this to the wonderful
things involved in running a business such as paying for the building,
lights, water, insurance, office supplies, tools, forklifts, packaging
material, racking, cleaning supplies, computers, and yes even safety
training materials to give to the Safety
Guy!
Accident reduction and
prevention involves everyone in the business top to
bottom.
Some view it as just
employment, but think about it, it any person fails to do what should be
done, everybody pays.
It is your pay raise,
equipment, bonuses, retirement, health, and even your life at
stake.
Now
Ask!
How much will the next accident cost?
Author and keynote
speaker Kenneth Hutchins has over 30 years experience in the Security
Industry serving as a Law Enforcement Specialist with both military and
civilian agencies in addition to Loss Prevention Management with some of
Article #2
What Were They Thinking?
By
Kenneth W. Hutchins
Instructor/Consultant, Industrial Truck Safety
A major
company cuts the training budget at one of it’s locations by forty
percent, less than a year later a major incident occurs and the company
is placed in the position of setting aside 1.2 billion dollars to settle
the lawsuits that follow.
A general
contractor on a construction site places an untrained laborer on a
forklift and the laborer strikes a power pole. The end result? Forty
million dollars in damage, including a 250 unit apartment complex and a
post office burning down.
What were
they thinking?
Probably the
same thing most people are thinking. What are the odds of it happening
here. We seem to be willing to take a risk with our business assets, our
personal fortune, and worse yet, the lives of our
employees.
Why is it
that American businesses are always trying to be reactive instead of
proactive.
It is not
unusual that a company will call for training after an incident has
occurred, trying to practice damage control instead of trying to control
damages.
It is time
for companies to get ahead of the curve instead of following the
incidents into the courtroom.
Well trained
personnel are safer personnel, no matter what the
subject.
Most
employees just by their very nature want to feel involved, want to be
informed, and want to know that they are valuable to the company.
If you allow
them to become part of the answer, they will jump at the
chance.
If you feel
that the training budget is expendable, think how successful you would
be if you were expected to perform your job without benefit of base
information, research, or communication.
Many times we
expect our employees to know without being informed. We tell them to do,
without telling them why.
We rattle on
citing company policies, procedures, and government regulations. We talk
endlessly about how valuable there are to us as a
company.
Then we fail
to tell them why the policy, procedure, or regulation is
important.
I know of a
town that for over a hundred years had a law that made it illegal to
have a water puddle in the yard of a private home. The home owner could
be fined if the puddle was not eliminated in twenty four hours.
Sounds nuts,
doesn’t it. That is unless you know where and why. The location would be
in southwest
Explain to
you employees why something is important. Then watch as they make safety
in your business a priority.
Author and
keynote speaker Kenneth Hutchins has over 30 years experience in the
Security Industry serving as a Law Enforcement Specialist with both
military and civilian agencies in addition to Loss Prevention Management
with some of