Attitude is everything

WORKING SAFELY BY STEVE SAYER

Sayer is presently a food and industrial safety consultant and is a part-time maintenance worker for California State Beaches in San Clemente, California. 

Attitude is everything

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog are strictly those of the author.)

“There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.” - William J. Bennett.

William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W. Bush.

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When I’m invited to assist companies with their occupational safety and health programs, one unique problem (opportunity) that I’ve occasionally observed isn’t the leitmotif of precipitous incidents of hand cuts, strained backs, or slip and falls; there exists proven ways and methodologies to scale them down to tolerable levels.

Rather, it’s the much tougher to fix woes stemming from unsafe attitudes and behaviors of supervisors that’s consciously or unconsciously encouraged by upper management themselves;

which in turn ends up being emulated, to some oscillating degree, by just about everyone else in the organization. 

Supervisors are the keystone for a safe, healthy, and productive working environment - period. Supervisors are the critical link that make company policies and procedures an integral part of plant operations. 

Supervisors have constant and steady contacts with employees and their work areas. This creates optimal opportunities to persistently train and proffer positive influences, directions and impressionable examples.

Supervisors represent management to employees. Their attitudes and behavior have a huge influence on employees’ attitudes and behavior.  

Consequently what is said or not said is often taken by employees as a direct reflection of upper management's view. Often workers are instructed by supervisors to take shortcuts thus sidestepping safety and quality to enhance productivity.     

A company’s existing culture is comprised of top-top management’s attitudes, values, commitments, beliefs and principles that unswervingly influence prevailing choices and behaviors within an organization.

If unsafe conditions and menial behaviors exist; then the working culture and its policies need to be re-examined, re-focused and changed; especially when competing priorities supersede employee safety issues. 

Many behavioral-based safety programs claim that a whopping 80% to 95% of on-the-job injuries and illnesses are caused by unsafe acts by workers. This is why addressing and establishing positive attitudes and constructive behaviors with top management at the get-go are so important.

When supervisors supervise, they need to display the attitudes and behavior that are displayed to them, and expected of them, by perpetual example – by top management.

When I sit down and talk to plant management and tell them that placing the blame on employees for their injuries and illness woes is parallel to blaming children for their problems without including the parents and the home environment;

I’ll know exactly at that instant whether that company is truly ready for a change; simply by reading the reactions on their faces. 

3/9/2011(Revised 10-10-2022)

WORD OF THE DAY

ATTITUDE