Andy Summers, business development manager, Juice Learning
Attitude matters… and in this regard, I’m specifically referring to attitude in the workplace; attitude as the maker or breaker of organisational improvement; and for the purpose of this article, attitudes to Health and Safety.
With traditional Health and Safety training, there are two areas which are treated to the majority of the limelight — Skills and Knowledge. Now, of course, these things are important. For example; without the correct skills to complete a safety-critical task and without the knowledge of safe working practices, you risk causing yourself, or somebody else serious injury.
So, the solution is to train our employees in the skills and knowledge to complete their tasks safely… job done, right?
Wrong!
So what’s the problem? Well, quite frankly, the problem (and the solution) is attitude.
Are you a car driver?
If the answer is yes, then you probably learnt to drive through a course of lessons and were ultimately subjected to a test whereupon your knowledge and skills of safely operating a vehicle on the road were observed, graded and you were ultimately issued with a driver’s license. All true so far?
Now€ﾦ have you ever knowingly broken a speed limit?
I can tell you that when we put this question to participants in our training events, at least 90% of people say ‘yes’.
Unless you’re one of the small minority who can genuinely answer ‘no’ to the question above, there are a plethora of reasons and justifications which make this behaviour ‘OK’.
‘Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn’t I?’
‘I’m perfectly competent and safe to drive at this speed’
‘Other people cause accidents’
‘I don’t agree with the speed limit, it’s too slow’
Whatever the justification, our choice to break the rules and do things ‘our own way’ is entirely down to our attitude and the same applies in the workplace.
Despite this, we find ourselves surprised when a programme of Health & Safety Training fails to result in a significant shift in behaviour? Often, this is because skills and knowledge have been addressed yet, fundamentally, attitudes have not been tackled, challenged and changed.
Most people will choose to take the path of least resistance and this path is littered with the kind of personal assurances as I listed above: ‘I don’t agree with…’, ‘everybody else is…’, ‘I’m perfectly competent…’!
To do anything well, to be compliant, to be safe, you need to ensure that the correct Knowledge, Skills and Attitude are applied correctly and in unison. If any one of these elements is missing from a safety-critical task, then we find ourselves relying on a fourth and final factor€ﾦ Luck.
Much like the speed limit, ignore attitude at your peril. Attitude matters.
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