When employees are in the field we expect them to work safely. We provide them with training, SOP's, safety policies and procedures, etc. But do we truly teach them to be safe. I believe that we fail them long before they ever reach working age. We teach them to use barriers to protect themselves, this should be the last line of defense. When our children are in the house we tend to"baby proof" everything. The wall plugs get inserts, cabinet doors get latches and many other such defenses used to prevent our children from being harmed.
Years later this translates into new employees coming into the field. When the new employees enter the field they have already been trained over the years to use these barriers to protect themselves from harm instead of being taught that certain behaviors can cause them harm. This causes employees to have a proclivity to use barriers or PPE instead of not placing themselves in an area that can harm them.
Instead of teaching our children not to stick things in the wall plugs, or not to touch hot things which gives them a greater awareness of hazards in their surroundings we attempt to be their protectors and place these aids that prevent them from being in harms way. We don't teach them to identify hazards, how to mitigate the hazards, or even what not to do. We just place a barrier in their way that prevents them from harm. What happens when our children go somewhere that doesn't have the wall plugs in place to keep our children safe? They are now in harms way without the necessary skills needed to keep them safe.
This is the same when they are old enough to enter the work force. Now we have the next generation of employees, the ones that will take over from us, entering the work force without the necessary skills needed to keep themselves and others safe. By doing things for them do they ever learn the dangers that we are trying to protect them from? Do they have the skills taught to them over the years, in childhood, that translates into hazard recognition and mitigation that is needed. Much to often we see PPE as being the first answer to a problem instead of being the last answer to the problem. This is fast becoming the go to answer in our industries. Often I hear "lack of training" as a factor in incidents but shouldn't this training start at home at an early age? Shouldn't we be teaching our children not to play with fire because you can get burn't? Shouldn't we be teaching them that flying objects can harm them, so choose a different path? Shouldn't we be better preparing for them life after adolescence? I believe that we are failing our children and have been failing to prepare them for the work world for a long time now. If we teach them how and why to be safe as children then this should directly translate into adults that better know how to work safe for themselves and others.
I am the original author of this article, it is previously posted on LinkedIn