Behavioral Safety

“Behavioral Safety”:

Has it changed the way you look at

safety? When you walk through the shop, do you notice if someone

working on equipment is tagged out or not? In the field, do you

notice if a dozer operator jumps off the dozer instead of maintaining 3

points of contact? On the draglines, do you notice the crew changing

teeth striking metal to metal with no face shield? While driving

down the roads, do you notice if someone throws a water bottle or

other trash out of a vehicle? Several people have stated in the last

month that they are more aware of their work habits not only on the

job but off the job as well. Not only do they want to work safe, but

they want their co-workers and family to be safe as well. Are we

starting to see a “Safety Culture Change”? What does it take to get

there?

How does doing an observation help improve safety? It

gets people to thinking about risks they are taking as well as risks

their coworkers are taking. That is why feed back is so important after

every observation and why recording the at-risk data is also very

important. We need to do an observation like someone’s life

depends on the quality of observation we do. Think about that for a

minute.

Are we still taking chances or shortcuts? Are we still

working too close to a dragline bucket? Are we still driving too fast

on the haul road? Have we done these things so long we don’t

realize what we are doing? That’s the importance of observations…

stopping to take a few minutes to really think about and OBSERVE

what we are doing. If you are still taking those risks, ask yourself, “Is

it worth my life?”. I don’t think so.

Every time we walk by a person working at-risk the opportunity

to prevent an accident is wide open for us. Take that opportunity

Thanks MB and all!