Unsafe and Inappropriate Behaviors
Simply put, unsafe behaviors are what we do or don't do that result in an injury or illness. These include work procedures that increase the likelihood of an injury.
Unsafe employee and management behaviors represent, by far, the highest percentage of surface causes for accidents in the workplace.
- The longer employees are exposed to hazards, the more likely they are to trivialize the dangers those hazards pose.
- Most unsafe behaviors occur because employees are in a hurry.
- Employees may take shortcuts to be efficient or because they don't realize the dangers.
- Most of the time, employees don't comply with safety rules because they don't understand why they are important.
- When supervisors and managers properly train, supervise, provide resources, and set a good example, they exhibit real safety leadership. However, when they fail to do so, they fail their employees.
Unsafe Employee Behaviors
Employees make choices about safety each day. They may choose to work safely or ignore safety, depending on the consequences they expect.
Employees may work within a safety culture that expects and insists on high safety behavioral standards. On the other hand, some employees may work within a culture that actually encourages unsafe behaviors. Ultimately, employee behaviors in the workplace depend on the safety culture (leadership) and safety system design (management).
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
5-4. Employees don't comply with safety rules most often because _____.
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