Is Your Safety Tech Hurting Your Safety Touch?

I’ve been speaking about this for years.  I feel strongly that we are made to be touched.  Hey, I even like to hug!  Yes, I liked to reach out and hug people - touch people and shake a hand.  That comes naturally within my family and with many of my friends.  I also know that not everyone is comfortable with it and I’m good with that too.  I know my limits and I always respect a person’s space.  And for some, I also know that a handshake is the most I can expect.

But did you know, many post World War II infants’ experienced abandonment and touch deprivation issues that led to serious developmental problems?  Newborn babies and infants who ended up in orphanages and institutions suffered mental and physical illnesses, social problems, and many other related disabilities.  For the most part, these children had their physical needs met but their emotional needs were lacking.  Some observations suggest that as many as 30% of these types of emotionally deprived infants eventually died because of the lack of human touch.  And the broad spectrum of developmental problems that stemmed from limited human touch was largely viewed as permanent and pervasive.   The lack of appropriate human contact at a very early age leads to serious developmental issues.

You may have similar concerns brought about by the far-reaching impact of technologies used in our everyday lives and to improve safety performance.  There are numerous handheld applications that help to make safety communications and reporting more efficient, but relationships can and will suffer, particularly if we don’t take deliberate actions that put us in direct contact with others.  Technological improvements and current e-learning advancements bring about similar challenges where personal interactions and face-to-face activities are lacking.

We are living within a society that is losing touch with people in more ways than one - so go ahead - reach out and touch someone.  We all need to be touched!

We need human touch from our leaders and peers.  Touch helps us to connect with others in ways that help to repair, rebuild or build relationships.  Touch helps us to show empathy, understanding, and at times it’s symbolic, signaling a beginning or end to something important.

Touch brings people together and improves our ability to influence individuals and groups.  To get our message through to people who need to know that working safely is the right thing to do - all of the time!  And for people who feel comfortable with this kind of contact, touch helps lead individuals to work safer on a day-to-day basis.

Try to remove human touch from the lives of some of the toughest individuals in the world - within our armed services and from various elite levels of sport - it just won’t work!

Human touch may have a temporary affect, but the lack of it is permanent.  Sorry HR and labor law attorneys, I promote appropriate touching in the workplace and I’ll keep hugging as much as possible.   

How about you - don’t you think we’re losing touch, too?

Are You Building Resilience Into Your Culture for Safety?

“You can’t do better than your best.”  Those are the words I heard from legendary football coach, Bobby Bowden during a recent time together.  I can only imagine Bobby using those words to “settle his team” during or after a difficult time or situation.  Or possibly to help them become more focused and resilient to the challenges at hand over the course of a long and difficult season. In our work, our groups, teams, and organizations will go through difficult times and we need to help prepare them to work through various difficulties.

When organizations are threatened by a challenging economy, downsizing, right sizing or re-engineering, we have to do our best to help ensure that that our culture for safety won’t drift.  Similarly, when a key leader leaves the organization, we have to prepare it to work through a wide-array of challenges, changes, and opportunities for growth rather than regression.  Let’s take a look at the 3Rs that can help you build resilience into your cultures for safety.

Relationships have to be addressed and will help to build resilience into our cultures for safety.  Building upon important relationships requires that we mentor the right people who can help lead the way and to engage even more individuals to move the organization forward.  It also requires that we help the right people build relationships with key leaders in our organizations rather than insulating future leaders from the types people that will be needed to provide ongoing support.  Being political and insular - “protecting your relationships” rather than expanding roles and relationships by including others and creating openness in communications with the right leaders is necessary.   Roles and relationships will change in the midst of challenges, so they must be carefully addressed. 

Resources will be challenged by change and may have to be stretched.  That’s why we have to build-up resources along the way, while things are good, and not “play catch-up” when our organizations are disrupted and stressed.  Whenever possible, we have to consistently plan and budget for improvements that relate to materials, tools, equipment, and facilities.  This needs to be accomplished in a methodical and deliberate manner, without major surprises.  Oftentimes, capital improvements are viewed as quality and productivity enhancements that inherently add value to EHS performance.   Leverage quality and productivity improvements as multi-dimensional opportunities that can be sold and supported as such. 

Reporting Systems and reporting requirements need to be strong and structured so they can be easily maintained and used by others with minimal effort and communications.  Reporting applications and systems are more efficient than ever and big data is our friend – use them to your advantage.  Systems relating to near-miss and accident reporting, ongoing communications, and upstream improvements that are tied directly to your facilities and equipment are a part of this same equation.   

There’s obviously much more that can be done to increase resilience, but you need to be very deliberate in building your cultures for safety to withstand future challenges and changes.  Certainly, these challenges will require a resilient organization that’s well equipped to create opportunities for improvement rather than crumble under the weight of change. 

Are you working in a way to build-up EHS resilience in your organizations for sustained improvement, so you’re a little closer to being better than your best?