Safety as a Process

June 01 2020
By: Terry L. Mathis

Deming told us that if we cannot describe what we are doing as a process, we don't know what we are doing. If that is true, a lot of workers, as well as safety professionals and organizational leaders, don't know what they are doing.

Workers tend to think of safety as a set of steps to take without understanding deeply how the process works to either allow or prevent an accident. Additionally, some workers don't think their efforts have any impact on the outcomes. They think their fate is controlled by something outside themselves. Psychologists call this an external locus of control.

Getting workers truly engaged in safety is not simply a matter of getting them to participate in training or meetings. It is not simply getting them educated on rules and procedures. True engagement begins with an in-depth understanding of what safety is and the processes involved in making it work.