Just a thought on the message to get across I have seen many companies celebrate what I think is the worng thing so sorry if this sounds a bit like a damper but I was wondering during the 2010 days, were they safe or were they lucky?

Many companies celebrate what didn't happen... if they were safe during the 2010 days then it would be a good opportunity to celebrate all the things the company did to achieve the milestone, to help reinforce why you do all things you do to stop people getting hurt.  (like how you learn from successful work, early interventions, management presence & comitment, employee raising issues and issues being resolved etc etc).

On the other hand, if they were lucky what message would you share………..

Edited by user 01 October 2018 10:56:15(UTC)  | Reason: Re-phrased

Thanks for the responses so far.

I would agree that 'celebrating just a number' can be a little simplistic at times and there are many factors that go into fulfilling a safety culture, and preventing injury and illness at work. That is why regular auditing, using Safety Cultural Maturity models etc, can give you a better picture. And give more piece of mind to the  'are we just being lucky?' scenario.

However with the companies I've previously worked for have celebrated these milestones. For example when we reached going a year without an over 3 day injury we had a celebration curry where the workforce was served by the Management Team. We used the day as an opportunity to re-enforce key safety messages, opportunity to re-invigorate H&S discussions a cross every level and and area of the site.

Another compalny I worked for had special Sports Jerseys printed celebrating the milestone. Getting children of workers to draw pictures to give to their parents asking them to wortk and come home safely etc.

Anything you guys out there along similar lines would be very much appreciated.

Kind regards

Ade

Originally Posted by: andygser

Personally I dislike the board at the gate type of thing declaring for example, 278 days without an injury etc,

 I can’t think of a better way of ensuring people are a little afraid to report if it's going to reset the injury clock or loose everyone the free curry lunch etc.

 

Wouldn't you say that is down to culture (i.e. fear or blame culture). Your celebrating what an amazing achievement it is to go for such a distance in time without an accident. As we all know there can be many reasons what accidents occur. And not just because of what the person who has had the accident has done. Management failures for examples. Seems like we are almsot fearful to celebrate success, and would rather wollow in the fear of something going wrong?

I think it is a double edged sword - yes on the plus side you help celebrate a safe site and show to staff/public that you take safety seriously (on face value at least).

The worry is, as others have mentioned, the fear of being the one that re-sets the counter to zero - it can push accidents underground - I've read in the past about how these schemes have seen some employees almost bullied into either not reporting the incident or returning to work too soon to avoid classing it as 3day injury.

I guess that can be viewed as a company attitude issue rather than the system itself but there is always that underlying risk it will happen - purely down to human nature rather than malevolence.

Why not have a board with quotes form staff saying why they like working there, what safety improvements they've seen over the years etc to give a better perception - you can even mention the days alongside/in the quotes. Add the employee's photo in a snapframe if (s)he's happy to do so and use a wipe clean board to update regularly?

We went 9 years without a RIDDOR and then when we did have one it was the strangest little accident when an older gentleman tripped over a pallet truck he had put in the area and fell on his bottom.  On the way down he appears to have hit his upper arm and this caused a hairline fracture.  He thought it hurt a bit but carried on working for 90 minutes!!!

Accidents happen but in our case as an engineering manufacturing organisation, I would say it's down to good management and not just "luck".  When we did have the accident we just accepted that sooner or later it was going to happen.  No finger pointing, no blame attached.