An unsuccessful shopping trip leads Tim Marsh to thoughts of Brexit and its relation to safety culture.
Yesterday I had a very frustrating day chasing up my mother’s 90th birthday present and while picking up my best boots that were in for repair. In both cases I had the same response: “So sorry for the delay sir, we’re really short-staffed.” I’m sure anyone reading this can supply any number of similar experiences.
The IMF has just predicted the UK will have the worst performing economy in the G7 in 2023 with one of the major causes cited as the ‘great resignation’ of some 600,000 working-age people. In other countries, like Germany and the US, who experienced a similar walkout initially, most of those workers have returned.
In this article then, I want to suggest my lack of repaired boots and varying Lost Time Injury (LTI) rates among different organisations share a similar and fundamental root cause.
It is said there are four main reasons people voted to leave the European Union. The FIRST and worst of the four was summarised by the author Will Self, who in a debate with politician Mark Francois, said: “Idiot, I didn’t say all leavers are racist, I said all racists are leavers!”.
The second is about idealism: notions of sovereignty and national identity1; the third reflects Dominic Cummings’ ‘Take back control’ slogan that resonated with individuals who personally felt alienated and voiceless, with the idea of having more control an appealing reason to vote leave2.
But it’s reason four that this article stems from – the aim of freeing the UK from restrictive ‘Brussels Beaurocracy’ that might let businesses thrive and turn the UK into a dynamic ‘Singapore off the coast of Europe’.
That there was a referendum at all reflected the fact that the UK was in the middle of a decade or more of Conservative rule – conservatism means moving the dial a little towards a business focus and personal freedom, responsibility and opportunity3. The dial’s movement is incremental over months and years and a consequence of new rules and regulations, regulations scrapped, incentives offered and the way existing rules are or are not enforced.
I hope the above sounds largely descriptive as I don’t mean this column to be a political argument. However, I do want to make the case that all of this means that in the UK, the dial has been tweaked in the same direction for a decade, away from a collective mindset and towards business and individuality. That’s fine of course, as rightly or wrongly, that’s just democracy in action.
Unquestionably, however, one of the consequences of this move away from a collective mindset is the aforementioned ‘great resignation’. More than half a million people in the UK are doing a Gareth Bale – determined to spend the rest of their lives on golf courses. Or they’re working an allotment or just on a sofa watching daytime tv having decided: “Bugger this for a game of soldiers, I’m out of here. No hard feeling but I’ve decided that helping you make money/deliver that service just doesn’t work for me anymore.”
It means Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is currently imploring people to return but they’re essentially saying, “Whatever mate” and we, consequently, have clients saying “We have the trucks, we have the orders, we just don’t have enough drivers! It’s infuriating …”.
So, this article is about the law of science and nature that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What suits you as an employer (zero-hours contracts being the most obvious example) might not suit me. The great resignation shows clearly how many people were feeling all along but it’s the ones still clocking in that are the focus of this article. Issues like absenteeism, presenteeism and particularly engagement and discretionary effort have, as mentioned, links to safety.
We know that culture is king and that even compliance can be discretionary where there’s any level of autonomy and choice. But vitally, most companies proclaim, “Here, we challenge, and we welcome challenge,” and exhort employees to “not walk by.” It’s the brother’s keeper very building blocks of a strong safety culture. It’s easy after an event to blame the individual stood closest who could have helped but, again, it’s just a universal truth that in strong cultures there’ll be fewer such individuals to blame and in weaker cultures there will be more.
In short, whether it’s the culture of a nation or the culture of an organisation moving the context dial – even just a little, one way or another – throws a cultural shadow and will have consequences.
At a national level, at an organisational level and at an individual level either more of fewer people will say, “Whatever…”, and one of the key messages and themes of safety excellence over the years has been encouraging people to consider, ‘What if?’. The very antithesis of this is, of course, ‘So what?’.
We can hardly ever predict who or where, but we can predict that one way or another, something life-changing will be more likely to happen – or not happen – because culture is all about context and culture is king.
Wrapping up, this article is put forward as a nationwide case study about the vital issue of ‘culture creation’, the constant subject matter of many a presentation at many a conference.
In the meantime, I still can’t get my best bloody boots back from Timpsons…
Competition
I recently had a birthday present of tickets for a ‘concert’ in London which I thought “can’t possibly be as good as people say” but was wrong. It was even better.
To win a book then, tell me the song from the concert, which included the lyric, the gods may throw a dice, their hearts as cold as ice, of course from Heinrich’s Principle. Furthermore, since this is a rather more academic article than usual and that’s far too easy can you tell me the (very relevant) next two lines from that song.
References
The Safety Conversation with SHP (previously the Safety and Health Podcast) aims to bring you the latest news, insights and legislation updates in the form of interviews, discussions and panel debates from leading figures within the profession.
Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts, subscribe and join the conversation today!
Very interesting article. The song lyrics are from ‘The Winner Takes It All’ by ABBA and the next two lines are: “And Someone Way Down Here” “Loses Someone Dear” and I agree those lyrics are very relevant.
Thanks to all entrants for joining in the fun – but Kieran the winner!
(So please send an address to [email protected] and i’ll send a book!)
Abba- The Winner Takes it All from Mamma Mia the Musical.
Next two lines:
And someone way down here
Loses someone dear
Also correct!
“And someone way down here
Loses someone dear” ABBA Winner takes it all
And also correct – but also not quite as quick as Kieran!
“And someone way down here
Loses someone dear”
From the “Winner takes it all” …. and I’m not sure to which side of the Great Resignation that applies.
Correct Andy … and I’m liking that sideways observation!