Hazardous People
Remember, hazardous conditions may be thought of as unsafe "states of being." All of the following situations may cause employees to be what we call "walking hazards."
- Fatigue: Employees are too tired to do the work without causing injury to themselves or others.
- Drugs or alcohol: Drugs (either legal or illegal) and alcohol place employees in altered states of awareness and lengthens reaction time.
- Distraction: Employees who are distracted (internal thoughts are not focused on the work being performed). You can't be thinking about the football game while working on high voltage!
- Hurry: This should be obvious. This is probably the greatest reason employees perform unsafe actions. The more hurried employees are, for whatever reason, the more likely they are going to have accidents.
Workers who take unsafe short cuts, or who are using established procedures that are unsafe, are accidents waiting to happen. As mentioned earlier, hazardous work practices represent about 95% of the causes of all accidents in the workplace. Bottom-line: If employees are not sober and focused while working, they are walking hazardous conditions.
- Management may unintentionally promote unsafe work practices by establishing policies, procedures and rules (written and unwritten) that ignore or actually direct unsafe work practices. These safety policies, plans, programs, processes, procedures and practices are called "system controls" and ultimately represent the causes of about 98% of all workplace accidents.
Hazardous System
Every company has, to some degree, a safety management system. Management may unintentionally promote unsafe behaviors by developing ineffective policies, procedures and rules (written and unwritten) that ignore safe behaviors or actually direct unsafe work practices. Safety policies, plans, programs, processes, procedures and practices are called "Administrative Controls," and they ultimately represent the causes for about 98% of all workplace accidents.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
2-7. What is probably the greatest reason employees perform unsafe actions?
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