Delegate
Supervisors play a crucial role in detecting and addressing unsafe work hazards, ensuring these are either eliminated or minimized. However, if supervisors remain confined to their offices throughout the day, one must ask: How can they effectively detect these hazards?
The Art of Delegation
In situations where regular oversight of work is impractical, it's important to consider alternative steps to ensure unsafe conditions and practices are identified promptly. One effective measure is to delegate that authority to one of your employees. If a two-person work crew is sent out on a project, make sure one of them is a lead-person with safety oversight responsibilities.
Send the Right Message
Assuming you are conducting adequate oversight, and you identify hazardous conditions or unsafe practices, the next crucial question is: What steps should you take? Swift and appropriate action is key to effectively eliminating or minimizing hazard exposure. The way you address unsafe work procedures with your employees greatly influences your success in this area. Consider the following scenario for illustration:
Scenario
Bob is working on a large mixing machine which should have been properly locked out before beginning the maintenance. During your daily walk-through inspection, you notice he is working hard inside the mixing unit, and you notice the mixer is not locked out. Bob could be seriously injured. You approach Bob, and consider what you are going to say to him.
In this situation, it's crucial to convey your concern for Bob's safety, as well as the safety of others and company property.
- Tell Bob to stop work and get out of the mixing unit immediately.
- Clearly express your concern for his safety. This communicates your motivation.
- Ask him if he's been trained in Lockout/Tagout. If he hasn't make sure he gets trained.
- If he has been trained, explore the reasons behind his failure to lockout the equipment. Be careful when using "why-you" questions because they can be interpreted as accusatory.
If Bob does not believe you are concerned about him and instead suspects that you are targeting him, he is likely to become defensive. This defensiveness can hinder open and honest communication, making it difficult to ascertain the true situation.
Find out the real reason. You may be surprised to find out that "you" may be part of the problem. Maybe Bob hasn't been properly trained, or he is under stress to "just get it done" at any cost. He might have been trained by an individual who did not value lockout procedures, and this attitude was adopted by Bob. You will find out that, most of the time, a missing or inadequate step in a process is the root cause. Don't play the blame game: go after the system cause and fix it.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
5-2. When you have work teams working remotely, and you can't adequately oversee their work, what should you do?
You forgot to answer the question!