Disclaimer: I am not naming or criticizing any specific employer in this post and will do my best to not make any comments that would obviously name anyone specific.  This post is just me thinking about all my work experiences in general so please, do not assume that you know which company/companies I’m discussing because it’s unlikely that you will figuring it out.

I’ve been through a number of safety orientations and courses in my working life.  In hindsight, that sounds like a silly thing to say since every place that I’ve been employed at should have given me a safety orientation but alas, that wasn’t the case.  However, I’ve still come across my fair share of Powerpoint presentations, safety instructors, and tours.  And, of course, I’ve always had an opinion about them which was usually, it’s not a particularly favourable one.  But now that I’ve completed an (applied) certificate in occupational health and safety, the nature of my comments are a little different.  In some ways, they’re a little softer.  On the other hand, I’m noticing some downright awful OHS orientations (and programming in general) that make even me hate OHS and that’s just not right!  So, where should I begin?

Well, I think I’ll begin with something that I never understood until I learned more about it: management’s commitment to safety.  Let’s take a step back for a moment though.  I remember, many years ago, having a conversation at a work event about the company’s ‘mission statement’.  What a silly thing that is!  A mission statement is a clear statement of the company’s goals and operating direction but, as we all know, a company’s main goal is to make money; this is basic capitalist economics.  So, it seems odd to spend tens of thousands of dollars and hours and hours of people power on something that doesn’t accurately describe the true mission of a company.  Yes, that’s a very cynical view of things but it’s hard to imagine a CEO or company president stop what he/she is doing simply because ‘it doesn’t fit in with the company’s mission statement’.  It happens but I suspect that this is rare.

But in terms of health and safety, I realize now just how important such statements can be IF and only if they’re seen to be carried out.  No one wants to work at an unethical company.  Many people are forced to for one reason or another but generally speaking, people should be able to work somewhere where they believe in the goals and direction of said company and this is where the mission statement comes in.

A statement of senior managers commitment to health and safety is obviously a declaration, directed solely to the company’s desire to keep all employees (including themselves) healthy and safe.  Again, it seems so silly on the surface to have to outright declare since this is a legal obligation anyway but like the mission statement, it’s important.  Like a mission statement, it’s a reminder – in words – of what is supposed to happen at that company.  Here’s an anology: think of a married couple who’s relationship is on the rocks after many years together.  One person will say, “Why don’t say “I love you” anymore?” and the other says, “Well, I shouldn’t have to.  You know I love you!”  Well, we all need to be reminded every now and then and corporate statements are the professional way of reminding us of what we’re here to do.

So, needless to say that when I sit down for an orientation at a new place of employment, if I don’t hear anything that even vaguely resembles a company ‘manifesto’, I get a little concerned.  Of course, as I briefly pointed out, if I don’t actually see that commitment to these statements, it becomes a major cause for concern however, to not even bother talking about them?  No, that needs to be front and centre in EVERY workplace orientation and it’s becoming more and more shocking to me how rare that is to see.  Mind you, some of the companies that I’ve worked at that have emphasized their commitment to health and safety have actually been quite the offender of OHS regulations but that’s another story!  (These places missed the all important demonstration of the companies commitments to health and safety.)

Having brought up one major issue that bothers a future OHS professional in modern day orientations, allow me to bring up an irritation of many employees and one that I find to be embarassing now that I’m (hopefully) about to become a OHS professional: the safety instructor him/herself.  In this world, we can be assured of running into our fair share of uninteresting, non-noteworthy people.  We’ll also probably meet a number of individuals who can only be described as psychopathic.  And let’s not forget the ‘happy, shiny’ people who I believe to be a special type of crazy.  (Just kidding!)  The human experience guarantees that there is most definitely an array of mental states and personalities out there.  The problem is though that not all of these people are meant to teach period let alone to teach safety.  That’s not to say that these people wouldn’t make quality safety professionals.  Far from it!  However, care must be given in selecting people for doing these types of presentations.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who is a local tradesman.  He is vehemently against safety professionals as he believes that you have to be safe anyway to do your job properly so why bother having some bureaucrat on the ground, nit picking about your work?  Oddly enough, I agree with the principle but as I know first hand how people have a tendency to not fully understand what they are doing, professionals who have studied these things are more than certainly in the position to ‘nit pick’.  But I’m getting off track here.  The point is that he made a very comical observation about people in OHS.  “Do these people even have any friends?  They were probably the kid who told on everyone at school so what do thy know about people?”  Unfortunately, this is how many people view health and safety professionals.  Another conversation I had with someone else recently revolved around how an individual in her workplace’s OHS team would treat people taking her course like they were in Kindergarten; throwing candy around, being nauseatingly enthusiastic, and saying things like, “You’re a super star!”.  I’m sure if I had gone through her course, I would have at least stayed awake which was more than can be said for some of the instructors I’ve ended up with!

I’m not sure what makes some of these people do presentations the way they do or even just talk to people in the manner that they do but I think OHS departments have a tendency to forget two important things:

1) You are an ambassador for the field of OHS as well as for your company therefore, your behaviour will colour their opinion of safety.  If the presentation or instructor has any negative aspects – whether intentional or not – it will sour people’s impressions or safety, the instructor, and the company as a whole.  It’s more powerful than you’d think!

2) If you make people uncomfortable or are condescending towards them, you are most likely not making your point because you will lose all credibility.  I hope this is self explanatory!

Now, I know many safety professionals will argue with me about this issue because it did come up in my classes.  The humour in it though is that if you can’t see why an uninformed bore or a chirpy morning person is inappropriate for doing safety presentations of all types, you probably haven’t been on the other side of the classroom enough.  That calls into question your credibility because it implies that you have no understanding of the students jobs.  Sure, the instructor knows everything in the world about ergonomics and the manager has be instrumental in causing the accident rates to fall but your true efficiency will be most definitely compromised.  Why?  Because the employees will despise you.  Who wouldn’t?! Needless to say that not only is that an unsavoury situation from a health and safety aspect but it most definitely ignores the psychosocial health of the workplace.  That’s a big no-no.  It’s an harsh criticism, perhaps, but one that I find health and safety professionals ignore because they can’t believe that it’s real.  But it IS!

Okay, so we have our commitment from senior management to ensure a safe and healthy workplace which has been demonstrated by their participation and we have found the right people to communicate that statement.  What’s next?  Well….having a coherent and useful presentation would probably be the next best course of action.  I have to laugh a bit at this thought because I’m hearing more and more doubts about the efficacy of Powerpoint presentations.  There are so many reasons for this with the most obvious being that people are less likely to pay attention to the speaker if they’re too busy writing notes or even just reading the slides in the background.  So yes, this is an issue that will definitely have to be addressed in OHS but I was thinking about something a bit more fundamental.

What is it that you actually have to communicate to a new employee?  Or any employee for that matter.  Yes, the size of the company as well as the nature of the work is going to determine certain aspects of an orientation or safety course but there are always going to be things that are universal.  I brought up the mission statement before along the a statement of management’s commitment to safety but really, isn’t that something an employee should know a tad more about instead of just having some schmuck read it off a slide and move on to the next thing?  How about following that with a summary of the company’s operations?

I would most definitely argue that not only should the topic of the rights and responsibilities or employees and employers be in the top 5 things to discuss in the beginning of any orientation but that it needs to be clarified properly.  Too many companies love the idea of holding an employee liable for any safety issues because he/she was ‘not being safe’ but that is not (completely) what needs to be stressed here.  It’s about a team effort not an excuse to place blame on someone, right?

If it’s a large organization and employees are most likely to receive another orientation that’s more specific to their jobs, is it really necessary to go through the whole gamut of safety topics?  And if you have to discuss specific topics, how much detail is necessary?  How can you communicate the gist of the topic without unnecessary details?  Some of this , of course, will come down to the quality of the instructor but even the best presenters are at the mercy of the presentations themselves.

Coherency is important in all things.  In a presentation/orientation, it not only helps keep you awake and interested but it helps make the information digestible; people will remember more facts.  So, it’s surprising to me how poorly my OHS program taught us to do presentations.  Perhaps though, that explains a lot of what I see.  But this point in particular should never be and issue.  If you can’t set up a logical presentation for anything, please leave it to people who can and importantly, can get good feedback from employees on the quality of the presentation.

I don’t want to come off sounding like some wild eyed maverick, hell bent on destroying everything but at the same time, one of the reasons why I got into OHS is because I believe that we can do better in helping people.  No one should hate or fear safety but yet, the way health and safety is being communicated is doing just that.  Yes, accident rates have gone down in the last few decades but with incidents of bullying and the true nature (and cost) of other psychosocial  problems like stress coming to light, have we possibly traded in one set of problems for another?  Is there a way to make workplaces safer without driving everyone crazy?  I think so and it starts with the word ‘communication’.