Is Safety Our Highest Priority? Should it be?
On my podcast, I recently had an eye-opening chat with Terry L. Mathis, the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm.
At one point, Terry said something that was rather jarring:
Safety can't be the top priority. That kind of nonsense has gotten me in all kinds of problems. One major oil company called me in and said, “Terry, we're going to say that safety is our number one priority. What do you think?” [I told them:] “Okay, you guys are the board of directors. Look me in the face and tell me you want to tell your stockholders that you’re the safest company that ever went broke.”
That shocked me because, usually, I like to link safety with profits. And I was thinking: Why can’t the safest company also be the most profitable? And why was Terry essentially saying the opposite?
So I did some research. Here are some brilliant snippets that opened my eyes to the complexities of claiming that safety should always be your highest priority.
Shawn M. Galloway, who I interviewed early this year and who works alongside Terry at ProAct Safety, wrote the following almost a decade ago:
When someone says "Safety is first with the company," there is a chance that the sense of responsibility of the employee is diminished or, worse, removed. Of course, employers' responsibility is to provide safe work environments. It is not, however, their responsibility to be safe for the employees, on or off the job (where the greater exposure lies).
Judy Agnew, a thought leader in the field of behavior-based safety and safety leadership, wrote:
Management says the words “safety is number one” but the frontline population hears loud and clear that production, on-time performance, or customer service is number one. Is this a communication problem? Not in the typical sense. Often the signs, slogans, statements and speeches communicate quite clearly that safety is number one. Unfortunately, management actions drown out the message.
Tagg Henderson wrote the following in an industrial safety magazine:
One of the things that infuriates me most is the all-too-common statement from a company spokesperson that “Safety is our top priority” after a preventable fatality. [...]
What’s the problem with claiming that safety is your top priority?
Well, first, it generally isn’t true. Survival of the company, production, profit, image, etc. are often higher priorities. And in our economic system, that makes sense. A company needs to make a profit to survive. But tempering that profit motive is why we have laws and regulations — and enforcement of those laws — to ensure that the quest for higher profits doesn’t result in injury, death, pollution or theft.
Emma of HASpod, a UK-based safety firm, wrote:
There are several reasons why health and safety is NOT your number one business priority, and shouldn't be.
Because in a business, the number one priority will always be financial. This is not a cynical view, it is how the world works, businesses are run to make a profit (or at least cover costs). If a business doesn't, it is unlikely to last in the long term. If you don't make money, you can deliver a return for your investors, you can't pay your staff, you can't buy goods and materials, and you can't continue to work. And if you're not doing anything, you don't have any need for health and safety at all.
In my conversation with Terry L. Mathis, we also talked about numerous other safety-related topics. Check out out chat: https://youtu.be/G7usGwx8yUw
