Are You Your Brother’s Keeper?
“I’m a big boy and I can take care of myself.” How many times have you heard this comment when observing and attempting to challenge risky behavior? Why do we hesitate to question someone else’s actions? And why don’t we listen to co-workers’ concerns? First, I believe we don’t want to deal with the confrontation, […]
Learning Leadership: Personal Protective Emotional Armor: Part 2
In the first part of this article (“Personal Protective Emotional Armor: Part 1,” December 2013), we briefly touched on the evolution of the value of human capital in the utility workplace. In the 1970s, government – including OSHA – and industry leaders began to combine efforts to define written safety procedures for nearly every craft. […]
Train the Trainer 101: Practical Elements for Developing a Safety Culture
If you have been a safety person for any time at all, you have heard someone say, “I can’t believe they did that!” It is usually in the context of an incident investigation. As the interviews are completed and the evidence is analyzed, it comes to light that the crew did something completely out of […]
Voice of Experience: Why Did I Do That?
I have often wondered why people – myself included – do the things they do. If you have ever investigated an accident or been the first one on the scene, you know it does not take much more than a quick glance to identify the most obvious contributing factors that led to the situation. The […]
The Benefits of The CUSP Credential
Improving Safety Through Communication
Recently we have heard about serious accidents and fatalities in our industry that have had a significant impact on the injured employees, their fellow workers, their family and friends, and virtually everyone else who knows them. These accidents should not have happened, and when we look at the events leading up to some of them, […]