“Serious accidents and dangerous occurrences continue to happen on our offshore installations and onshore sites during routine operations. Analysis indicates that not following procedures and lack of risk awareness are contributory factors in many cases. Initiatives taken to date have delivered improvements in health and safety performance but have not achieved the desired incident reduction. A behavioural approach which actively engages everyone through personal responsibility is seen as the principal way forward.”

http://stepchangeinsafety.net/stepchange/resources_prfs.aspx

I’ve looked at government sites and they seem to maintain that safety is employer responsibility. They advise employees to take “reasonable care.”

Natalie

We can go back and forth on the nit picky aspects of this but I really think the point is: Don’t rely on your employer to KEEP you safe. Rely first on yourself and then all the others who say they care about your safety can get in line – the more the merrier.

I really agree about the importance of taking responsibility for yourself whether you’re at work or not and it has been my experience that when someone is not paying attention to what they’re doing and instead relying on someone else to keep them safe, they are putting themselves at some level of unnecessary risk. And the companies who experience significant on the job injuries are inadvertently perhaps, contributing to the very thing they don’t want.

Does it have to be an either/or situation? I think safety programs and personal responsibility can work hand in hand along with a large dose of common sense.

Just so you know, the study you cite states in its conclusion, “Our results not only demonstrated that management place an important role in maintaining a safe workplace, which should be obvious, but that managers and supervisors do so in differing ways….” (p. 22)

Sometimes you have to read to the end of these things to see how it all turns out.

We all have a share the responsibility pie, no? Just watch which cherries you’re picking for it.

– TL