Changing the Face of Safety

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by John V. Carvalho III

Picture this scenario, you are a building manager for a large company or university with hundreds of good people working in your building. You have spent a significant amount of time and resources on making sure that both your employees, and the building are kept safe. You took appropriate measures from making sure your first aid stations are well stocked, to having carbon monoxide detectors in appropriate locations, and a hazardous gas detection system for areas of your building where these types of gases may be present, etc.  In the middle of a long Monday, an alarm goes off and an evacuation of your building is necessary. The fire department shows up, money from production is lost and people feel uneasy. If you’re a large company, perhaps you end up in the local news. Thankfully, it was simply a false alarm but, could it have been avoided? Should it have been avoided?

In the ever changing world of hazardous gas detection and safety products, being reactive is no longer a viable option; it is necessary to be proactive, not only to protect those for whom the safety systems are in place, but to save time, money and resources –not to mention your company’s or university’s reputation. Being proactive in the world of safety means not looking back at how hings have gone wrong, but looking ahead on how to keep things running correctly. In other words, being proactive with safety means focusing on how everyday performance usually succeeds instead of why it occasionally fails.

For years in the game of hazardous gas detection and safety management, it has been a cat and mouse game of making adjustments when an unacceptable outcome arises or even worse, a tragic event takes place. It was running around to meet imposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards and regulations and spending vast amounts of money in short amounts of time. No successful business model or even family financial planning takes place in this way, so why would we risk safety on this faulty model?

Yet, to this day, this is what happens in many organizations. The reasons (or in many cases, excuses) for this can be numerous: there is not enough money in the budget for all that needs to be purchased or done; there is not enough time in a busy workday to spend time on something which only “may” happen; there has never been a problem before so we all feel safe “enough.”

Consider the model which meteorology (albeit it is certainly not perfect) has endorsed. You cannot turn on a weather forecast without numerous warnings of impending hazardous weather being shown as soon as a significant storm such as a blizzard or hurricane is forecasted. There becomes a media hype that envelops the attention of the public. Again, while we can easily debate the exactness of the science of meteorological forecasting, the model has become quite simple: have as many people as possible be prepared for the worst situation to limit the liability and loss. This must be the model in the current day world of gas detection and safety.

Being proactive in safety management means adjustments to procedures are made before something happens. As technology improves almost daily in many aspects of our lives, it is also the case in the realm of safety, particularly with hazardous gas detection. No longer should a building owner or manager, a safety officer or facility director have to wait until an alarm goes off to be able to know there is a problem. Being on the cutting edge of safety technology now means that your computer, laptop and mobile devices are monitors of your gas detection equipment. It means that you can see that your equipment is trending toward a possible false alarm or even failure and it can be inspected and rectified before anyone in the community or your building knows that there was a problem because the problem never actually takes place.

In a much less technological way, but still important to daily safety, it means that you spend the small investment up front to be well stocked in your first aid needs in an office or school building or safety gear for your worksite crew. Being proactive means that instead of scrambling to get your workers trained for OSHA safety regulations, you trust a safety company to keep your workers trained annually and keep you up to date on any changes which may effect you, your workers or your business.  In the end, any investment made to be proactive will greatly outweigh the cost of reacting to a safety issue. Here are a couple practical suggestions on how to begin being more proactive in safety rather than reactive:

1. Look more at what goes right on a day-to-day basis. Learn from what succeeds and continue to improve on that.

2. Always seek to improve communication. This can be communication between your workers and facility manager or office workers and office manager, etc. In all cases, knowing what the daily and big picture safety needs are for the people you are charged to keep safe will make planning much easier.

3. Trust the experts. Find a safety company that takes safety seriously and can provide you with all your safety needs from band aids to high tech gas detection.

With a new year upon us, looking forward and being positive is at the forefront of our minds. Keeping everyone safe is a great resolution to make by looking forward, planning and being proactive.

 

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Avatar About the Author: The Rhode Island Small Business Journal is a printed monthly magazine and an online resource for the aspiring and start-up entrepreneur and small business owner.

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