Complacency, that is, a familiarity with a process so in depth that workers take it for granted that they will not get hurt while performing a routine task

1. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Complacency
The Smug Killer
The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
March 2017

2. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Introduction
■ Housekeeping
■ Who is this goofball and why
should I listen to him?

3. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Spotting Complacency
3
“We haven’t had a fatality in over 3 years”
“Our Safety record is better than industry average”
“We’re not looking to be world class and have people from some institute
come in and study us; we just want to be safe enough”
“The savings to the company for eliminating all injuries would be so small
that the C-Suite would just look at it and shrug and say so what? Do
something about my REAL costs ”
“Our recordables are down 15% from last year!”
“The likelihood that someone will die on the job in this industry is infinitesimal ”

4. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Executive Complacency
4
■ Why spend money on
something that might never
happen?
■ This is a dangerous industry, if
you work here you have to
expect to get hurt
■ I don’t like worker injuries but in
the grand scheme of things it’s
not costing us that much money

5. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Operational Complacency
5
■ “We have enough to do without
worrying about safety”
■ “Sometimes we have to take
shortcuts to get the job done”
■ “Safety makes it impossible to
do our jobs?”
■ ‘What safety doesn’t know won’t
hurt them.”

6. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Worker Complacency
6
■ I’ve done this job 10,000 times
■ I can take short cuts because I
know what’s safe and what’s not
■ What are the odds THAT will
happen?

7. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Safety Function Complacency
7
■ “Our system works”
■ “We had zero injuries last year”
■ “We reduced our Workers’
Compensation costs by 20%
last year”
■ “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”

8. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Why is Complacency Dangerous?
8
■ Risk is a probability and
complacency makes us forget
that
■ Ignoring risk gets people killed
■ We think we’re good but we
might just be getting lucky
■ We could be wasting money on
activities that don’t add
appropriate value

9. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
What needs to happen…
9
Implement a system that …
• Uses predictive indicators instead
of lagging indicators
• Focuses on risk rather than safety
• Combats subconscious
competency
• Aggressively retrains workers
against the standard to avoid
behavior drift
• Provides cross peer-to-peer
training

10. The world’s leading sustainability consultancy
Questions and Comments
10