Complacency Judo!
So it’s started - Christmas decorations are out at Big W and we all start to shift our focus to summer, Christmas and all the great things that come with the festive season. A great time of the year, but unfortunately we typically see an increase in complacency related workplace incidents.
So what is it that we can do to prevent complacency?
Firstly, don’t fight it – repression leads to disengagement, so instead let’s leverage the silver lining.
Not unlike Judo, turn the weight of the threat into opportunity. Introduce novel initiatives that support the vision of a happy healthy festive season. Personally, I’d look to create some summer specific initiatives.
‘Outdoors in October’ – A focus on skin and sun damage, now that summer is coming, be particularly mindful of the increasing UV index and avoid the summer sunburn!
Action: Toolbox talks, hazard hunts and risk reviews which capitalise on the excitement of the sunny days.
‘Manual Task Movember’ – Couple with Movember if you like, everyone wants to be able to kick the footy or bowl a couple overs at the family BBQ down the park! A great way to have a laugh together and start to build awareness and conditioning to bring us out of hibernation.
Action: Bring health and wellness into focus by introducing morning stretches and planking –in addition to this, look to score hazard hunts, educate on core strength (and how to keep your liver healthy).
'Light up' December – One of my favourite traditions is driving around the suburbs with the kids, ‘hunting’ and scoring houses decked out with Christmas lights. Obviously, outdoor power, electrical components and working on ladders come with an element of risk. So plug it directly into your pre-start meetings and site inspections. Whether in the workplace or at home, the hazards are the same.
Action: Have people focus on ladder safety and encourage an increase in hazard reporting. Review electrical registers and tagging.
Post up a map in the office where people pin some of the great houses they have discovered, builds a sense of community and discussion. Even better, encourage them to take photos, which you can workshop with your crew to reverse engineer their methodology (how people may have got lights onto the roof and power outside SAFELY) – get the work crew to elect a winner, from there your business can arrange a hamper to be delivered, great PR and community engagement!
In any case, have some fun and reward performance with prizes which champion rather that repress the holiday vibe, I’m thinking Christmas lights, gift cards, hampers, butcher packs etc. anything to juxtaposition (or fuse imagery of) safe work and holiday fun.
Like Judo, leverage the weight of the threat (summer daze), to win the fight (safe at work).
AP
#RiskManagement #SummerDaze #SummerTimeBlues #Safety #OccupationalHealthandSafety
