Cowboy Safety

Safety Mission Statements

Every company it seems has a mission statement. A mission statement is intended to be what the company is all about. Yet I find that most employees and executives cannot recite the mission statement of their own company.

I could be wrong but I think that most of them were written by low level clerks in the Human Resources department who had nothing else to do.

A mission statement should be something that can be viewed passionately. It should be a real action plan. Whenever a new issue comes up it should be run past the mission statement.

While he did not call it as such, the following can be viewed as the Mission Statement of William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army. Note that it is expressed in terms of the problems to be solved. It is short, specific and leaves room to cover other social ills by inference.

While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight-I'll fight to the very end!

From: BOOTH THE BELOVED, by J Evan Smith (Oxford University Press, 1949), pages 123-124

Think of different issues that could arise. With this as a part of his whole being it became quite easy to stay focused.

A vast amount of money is spent in safety for things that have no real connection with the safety mission. By having a mission statement and then by constantly asking the question "How does this activity or expenditure achieve our safety mission.

Cowboy Safety includes a tool for developing the safety mission statement in a believable way.

Svilar's Restaurant – Hudson Wyoming

You might be wondering why we would talk about a restaurant here. First of all Svilar's in Hudson Wyoming is a good restaurant. Secondly and most importantly for our purposes Svilar's is an example of sustainability. And sustainability is something we should all be looking at as the economy become more and more global. There are many parallels between your business and the restaurant business.

Mama Svilar has been gone for many years. But she set in place a sustainable process. How about you? Are you setting up something that is sustainable? Is your process good? Now is the time to deal with it. After you are gone will your safety process continue?

As a frequent traveler I have noticed the decline in the quality of the restaurant experience while the prices increase. It is because restaurants today are run by accountants. The quicker the customer leaves the quicker the table can be turned. By lowering quality, decreasing portion size and raising prices, the margin per customer increases. The breakeven point is high because so much is spent on attaining a certain ambiance. The appearance of quality is the highest priority. I know of one beautiful restaurant in Wyoming with a popular lunch buffet where the carved roast beef is always terrible. Actually so is most of what they serve. Everyone complains about it. Why do they keep going back? Are they intimidated by the beautiful décor? I have talked with the Chef of this restaurant. He knows exactly how to prepare roast beef but he is working with the cheapest possible cuts of meat.

In the same way that restaurants are run by accountants who know "the cost of everything and the value of nothing," much of the safety world is governed the same way. Many good safety people know what I am talking about. Management does not know the cost of safety nor does it know the value. The appearance of safety is the top priority. Promoting the concept of sustainable safety to your top management is the opportunity for you to make a difference.

Have you ever wondered why seat belts and not helmets became mandatory in vehicles? Both seat belts and helmets are essential in NASCAR events. Many lives have been saved by the belts and the helmets. So why not require helmets on the race tracks known as interstates? The reason is that the implementation cost per life saved is over a certain amount. I do not know the amount today. At some point in the past the amount was $250,000. It was determined that the total cost of implementation of seat belts was below a certain amount per life saved and so it was done. Helmets would save lives but the cost is too high.

As a society we cannot afford 100% safety. The health care industry is trying to do this. It does it because everyone with medical insurance does not see the cost and wants unlimited amounts spent on themselves and their families. No problem with this attitude except that it can result in interventions that provide no benefit and in fact may cause harm. Health care people then see an opportunity to let the meter run whether it does any good or not both to satisfy the customer and to protect themselves from lawsuits. We are now spending 15% of the GDP on medical care and the cost is rising rapidly. It is not sustainable. There is much spent on safety and much of it is being wasted. In a global economy it is not sustainable. Here are a few simple examples.

1. People who are current BEC or EMT are put through First Aid classes.
2. Drivers with perfect records are given Defensive Driving training.
3. Retraining for some people is too frequent and for some not enough.
4. One company sent people to training who had just come off an all night shift. Actually it is not unusual for tired employees to go to training.
5. There is often no site-specific relevance and people are trained in things they do not need to know.
6. Many if not most safety managers are not knowledgeable about business. They are left out of the business planning loop by management and so it seems to be ok.
7. Many if not most safety managers do not understand what is known as "make or buy." They do not have the authority to make a choice so maybe it does not matter.
8. Much of the expense of safety is maintained below the gross margin line and is buried in other general items.
9. There are many firms with no formal safety plan that have excellent safety records. One company with a large number of employees told me that when they started safety plans and safety training that their incidents began to increase. Why is that?
10. I have found that most safety managers do not know even the average cost per man-hour including benefits at their company. Consequently they do not know the cost of their training and cannot make good judgments about the effectiveness.
11. Frequently people miss training for various reasons. No make up is planned. Why not skip the training altogether for everyone?
12. Many safety people do not like their jobs or do not see themselves as professionals. Maybe management is to blame.
13. The availability of training either in house or outside is not available when it is actually needed. So if it can wait six months why not skip it completely? If it is needed isn't it needed now?
14. Safety is viewed as necessary but is not really all that important.

 

I have to warn you that if you want to go into sustainable safety you will have to develop some new measures in addition to OSHA reportables. As Charles L Gilmore so aptly said, you will work to attain "the optimum balance of loss potential, loss probability, and profit." It will no longer just be spending unlimited amounts to control loss potential. It will no longer be holding mass training and retraining but will involve individual training contracts. It will also mean looking beyond personal injury and fire protection.