Description

One of the key concepts of business is “pacta sunt servanda”, i.e., contracts must be kept.  When management hires employees, it promises them – at least implicitly – that they will not be harmed while working.  To keep this promise, managers must apply the seven Golden Rules of Vision Zero.  Once hazards are identified, mitigating programs identified and safe machines installed, managers must lead the implementation and develop competence of their employees.  This means executing four different roles to help their employees progressing to safety in four steps: “to know”, “to understand”, “to accept” and “to do”. Knowing means that managers must be teachers, understanding coaches, accepting motivators and doing mentors.  Examples are given for those four roles.

Government has two roles to play in this process. The first one is the classic one of defining a level playing field, requiring all competitors in a given economic activity to maintain the same safety standards and then controlling compliance.  Equally – if not more – important is the second role of enabler.  Managers are not necessarily good teachers or coaches, needing input.  And safety is frequently not the area managers are fully familiar with.  Government safety officers know and understand safety and have extensive experiences with at least good practices.  They can teach managers how to teach and coach, they can show successful motivational approaches and they can explain the barrier to the step “to do”.  Fulfilling this role of enabler, the Government officers transform themselves from “police” to “helper”, supporting managers in their transformation from “I have to comply with safety laws” to “I want keep my safety promises to my employees”.

One afterthought:  workers have also an important role to fulfill, namely to watch out for their co-workers.  Most humans are sometime absent-minded;  we need colleagues reminding us at such times.