HABITS AND SAFETY
We all have habits that we follow on a daily or weekly basis. These habits have a major effect on our life. They also affect the choices we make at work.
The choice to follow a safety procedure on any given day could be affected by a habit you have had for years.
Your Daily Habits
Think about the habits you follow every single day. Start with waking up.
Did you hit the snooze button once or twice?
Do you do this every day?
What about breakfast?
Did you cook in the house, or did you stop at the same gas station you do every day to grab a quick bite to eat?
Most likely the choices that you have made from the point you woke up today to right now in this safety meeting are the same choices you make every single day. These daily choices are your habits.
Habits and Safety on the Job
Your habits may be leading you to consistently take shortcuts and not follow safety procedures. Are there certain safety procedures you always follow and others that you rarely follow?
For example, you are a welder and every single day you complete your JSA, but many days there are times you choose not to lower your helmet while welding. Why do you choose to follow one safety procedure but not the other?
Maybe you complete your JSA every day because you have to turn it in at the end of the day and you have learned that it gets reviewed.
The reward would be not getting disciplined by a supervisor, so you choose to do the JSA every day. On the other hand, you choose not to lower your welding helmet because it is hard to see through and you know supervisors rarely enter your work area.
The reward is that you feel it is quicker to do the task, you can see better, and you have not been injured yet. In your mind there is no consequence that will most likely come that is more negative than the reward you receive from not putting the helmet down, so you continue the behavior.
Pay attention to the habits you hold on to and how they affect you daily. How many of these habits are positive ones and how many are negative? Look at the choices you make at work and if they lead to negative behaviors then look at changing them.
By addressing the trigger or experiencing a different reward for your behaviors you may find a way to change bad habits.