Hi David,

PM me our email.

"You cannot manage what you cannot measure".

I have to disagree.

Consider the following:
“However, there is no scientific method of measuring the results of the body’s exposure to risk through dermal contact. Consequently no dermal exposure standards have been set.”
from “Occupational skin diseases and dermal exposure in the European Union (EU-25):policy and practice overview - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

What would you measure? What lands on the skin (and possibly falls off). What sticks to the skin and causes irritant damage. What is absorbed into the skin and causes allergic reactions. What penetrates the skin to damage internal organs. Or more probably a combination of these.

If we cannot measure, does this mean we cannot manage skin exposure?

In the words of Albert Einstein: "Not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that counts can be measured."

Chris

It's a maxim proposed by Drucker and used ubiquitously in management. More conventional thinking is that we tend to measure what is easy, as opposed what we should measure.

Kieran D

I do not wish to be a pretentious bore but Dov Zohar never looked at social climate and never made an assessment of any type of social factors unless you class peoples attitude to safety at work as a social measurable within a work place context - rather a blunt description

He did in fact take a 40-item measure of organizational climate for safety that was constructed and validated in a stratified sample of 20 workers from each of 20 industrial organizations in Israel. (some might argue that this is hardly a decent size sample with no real empirically verifiable data). It did however stand out as a watershed of theory around workplace culture and climate and how we can effectively encourage "safe behaviours" in a work setting.

This measure of climate reflects employees' perceptions about the relative importance of safe conduct in their occupational behavior and not anything to do with social indicators. It also only derived that where the samples showed a good safety culture/climate a person was less likely to get injured - an indicator not a measure.

The climate toll can assess from highly positive to a neutral level, and its average level reflects the safety climate in a given company. It is shown that there was an agreement among Ss' perceptions regarding safety climate in their company and that the level of this climate was correlated with safety program effectiveness as judged by safety inspectors.

The 2 dimensions of highest importance in determining the level of this climate were managements' perceptions of safety and their own perceptions regarding the relevance of safety in general production processes. It is proposed that organizational climate, when operationalised and validated as demonstrated in this article, can serve as a useful tool in understanding occupational behaviour not as a definitive measue as described in HSG 65.

The theory (It can be argued research wise) was derivated into the APAU survey which can be used as a singular pro-active measure to supplement a whole range of indicators.

By the way - the chap only asked for an audit !! LOL