Written by: Stuart Platt 8/8/17
In our everyday interactions in the field, conducting audits and inspections for our clients, we are constantly identifying contractors, subcontractors, individual members of management teams and/or individual workers not following the site/project rules (or not abiding by general safety standards at all).
Sometimes we ask them why? To try and understand the reasoning. We’re had a multitude of answers from; I don’t have time, I just wanted to get the job done, a shrug of the shoulders or even ‘ah you caught me out’. However, most of the time we don’t get an answer at all, so we just document our observations (findings) write our reports and hand them to the client (to pass onto the contractors to fix an issues)
Why is it so hard for some people to follow the rules and conduct themselves in a safe manner? This is at work but also in our private lives? (you just have to look at the road statistics to see how we are fairing there; road rage and accidents) This I think all comes down to a little item called self responsibility? So, what is it?
Self responsibility; the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management. I also like the Answer I read a little while ago; Personal responsibility is the willingness to both accept the importance of standards that society establishes for individual behaviour and to make strenuous personal efforts to live by those standards.
So, what does it mean to be personally responsible? why can’t people follow the rules? Are there too many rules? Are things too strict?
Is it because we aren’t given enough time (or feel we don’t) to get our work done, do we have too much work to do in a given time? Why are people always in a rush to cut corners? Are expectations set too high for us to achieve?
Do we need to change track are reevaluate aspects of what we do and how we do it?
I suppose I will leave this blog with more questions to answer then answers themselves however, hopefully it will give you some ‘food for thought’ with regards to your own ‘self responsibility’
We are supporting DR Monika Nagel at the WA club presentation on the night of the 22nd of August 2017 with a 10min discussion on this subject. DR Nagel is talking about; Re-Finding the 21st Century (series) OSH and Self Responsibility. If you would like to come along or know more please visit http://waclub.com.au/networking-events-perth/439-re-finding-the-21st-century-a-series-by-dr-monika-nagel for more information. It should be a great night.