REDUNDANCY

Some individuals like to reflect on the “old days” when it was all about production to protest the ever-increasing emphasis on workplace safety. Over the last few decades many changes have come into play regarding workplace safety.

Whether it is through new technologies, new laws, new rules, or just more focus given to safety, those in the same job for years have experienced a major shift towards more of an emphasis on safety than the years before.

Why Safety Can Be Redundant

Often the same work tasks are completed every single day. Because of this, the safety issues and focuses are often the same- day in and day out. The discussions on safety will often focus on a handful of hazards for the work going on that day.

The reason for this is because the same hazards often are the ones that cause most incidents and injuries. While discussing and focusing on the same old hazards can get redundant, it is important to never become complacent towards them.

Battling Complacency

We do many of our work tasks in the same exact way every single day. Yet paperwork is still filled out and discussions are still had regarding safety for these tasks. One of the hardest things to avoid at work is complacency with hazards as well as going through the motions with safety procedures.

As time goes on, individuals become more confident in their abilities and knowledge at work and some people are willing to take more risks. This is one reason why safety issues need to be constantly reinforced, even if it has become redundant to talk about them.

It is understood that safety can be redundant at times, but it needs to be understood by employees that we all need reminded to stay focused on working safely. The same old hazards are often the ones that get people injured.

OSHA’s “Fatal Four construction hazards” are an example of this. It is known that falls, electrocutions, struck-by, and caught in or between incidents are the main causes for the overwhelming majority of fatalities in the construction industry yet it reoccurs year after year.

Do not get complacent with the hazards of your work and do not view some redundancy in a safety program as a negative.