Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Keeping Safety in Perspective


Some companies will openly show signs that state “Safety First” as one of their company values.

While this indeed sounds noble and well meaning, in reality it directly conflicts with the main purpose of the business – which is to make money for the owners, employees or stockholders either through sales of a product or offer of a service.

We will advance that it makes more sense for safety to be considered an integral part of the business – akin to the 3 legs of a stool - all equally as important to the overall continued success of the business. The 3 main priorities would be productivity, product or service quality and safety.

Consider now how much more sense this makes from a day to day operational perspective and employees being better able to conceptualize the relationship and importance of all 3 priorities working together equally for success.

Visualizing one of the main priorities failing causing the stool to fall over might help.

Keeping this perspective could make safety a more realistic concept for all concerned.