The Safety Police

Safety auditors now become the safety police. I haven’t talked to a safety professional who hasn’t bristled at the notion that, at least part of their job is to serve as the safety police. Sad but true.

One would think that the front line supervisor should be playing the role of rule enforcer. After all, it is probably in their job description and they are the folks most likely to be present when front line workers violate rules, or at least present enough to learn that it happened because of equipment damage, a disrupted process, or their own spidey-senses (supervisors know).

As I’ve noted, most front line supervisors hesitate or privately refuse to write up their workers when they break rules and take risks. Certainly, there are exceptions—like when an infraction was egregious, causing great risk to everyone. This is just, and is absolutely the right time to enforce rules.

Other times supervisors might get backed into a corner when their workers' behavior resulted in such a shit show that it caught the attention of the bosses who started asking questions. Even then, they may shield their team from negative consequences and take on the punishment themselves. After all, a good front line leader will protect their troops and see their behavior as an extension of their own.

I did a series of workshops for Naval officers where I asked for stories of at-risk behavior resulting in injury or serious close calls. One upset Commander told me of a Chief (the Navy’s non-commissioned front line leaders) suffering a dismissal from his post because trash (discarded tools, broken equipment) had been tossed into the “hell hole” in the back hull of the ship. This was a sunken compartment off the engine room floor convenient to throw heavier trash until it can be removed while in port. It was against the rules to use the hull for this purpose but a common practice, the Commander even admitted that he had done it in the past. This practice was so common that part of the crew’s job was to secure a net over the hell hole so that this heavy trash could not bounce out in rough seas. Well, they didn’t and a piece of discarded equipment got free and dropped into the gears for the prop destroying the assembly, a million-dollar mistake. The Commander asked which sailor had discarded the equipment in the hell hole and failed to net it. Instead of calling out one of his sailors, the Chief ‘fell on his sword’ and took the blame citing it was his failure to inspect the area… and he was demoted.

Perhaps the only other time a front line supervisor will enforce a rule may be when the rule violation was committed by a worker who had driven the supervisor to their last nerve.

But writing up a worker comes at great personal cost as they would then turn the whole crew against you. So, let’s just agree it is rare for your supervision to enforce rules with the type of consistency and fairness that would make compliance a given across the board.

Without front line supervision enforcing rules who's to do it? Higher levels of managers might, but, like that young Commander, they enforce the rules only when all hell breaks loose and they find out about it, having to answer questions from their own bosses because they know about it too.

In the end, enforcement falls on the safety professionals. I’ve seen safety departments exponentially grow in size as companies try to canvas their workforce with enough safety police to enforce rules in an attempt to get their injuries under control. At least it is good job security. Most safety professionals who drink the safety-culture cool-aid do not want to be, or be seen to be, the safety police. Even they (you?) become hesitant to enforce rules.

I was doing workshops with a power company’s foremen, about 20 of them in this session, and we predictably had that one dude who had to draw all the attention to himself (there is one in every group). He would constantly cut jokes and say things like I tell my new folks, we’re a tough bunch here doing tough things, if you can’t handle it then get out of the kitchen! In my debrief I found out that this foreman, in his 25th year, was famous in the company for getting the job done, getting the power back on during an outage in the worst of weather. Come hell, high water… wind, lightening, rain or snow … animals, ravines, mountains, forest or swamp … light or in the wee hours of the morning … his crew would get it done … quickly and return to the base with brush and tree limbs jammed into the wheel wells, bumpers and bed, dents and discolorations, busted PPE and the unreported lacerations and bruises.

Famous and infamous among the safety team. I mentioned this guy when the safety manager and I were out to dinner with the CEO whose advice was I would fire him, but then I’d be jumping the chain of command, the fact is that none of you will do it. So not even safety professionals play the role of safety police with any consistency.

With all this said, I have seen some safety folks who revel in the role of safety police. They know the tricks of the trade, what risks their workforce takes, how workers hide risky behavior, and how to find evidence of noncompliance … they know because they used to do it themselves. The best safety police are the old workers who loved to give the safety police hell! But, believe me, you don’t want a safety department full of safety police enforcing rules, you’ll be stepping back a couple decades in your safety culture.