Carl Potter and Deb Potter

No Such Thing as Collateral Damage
Annually, 75 to 80 workers die from fatal injuries in the electric utility industry. A large number of these deaths are due to electrical contact. It’s no secret that many of the incidents leading to serious and life-ending injuries could have been avoided by following well-researched practices and regulations including conducting and documenting pre-job briefings, using personal protective equipment cradle-to-cradle and ground-to-ground, using equipotential grounding, and wearing sleeves with high-voltage rubber gloves. (See side bar) Yet, in many companies, workers and their leaders resist implementing these as prescribed safe practices.

Imagine for a moment that one of your children has secured his or her first job with an electric utility that did not use these safe work practices. Your child calls you after the first day at work and says, “At the orientation today, they said there is a chance that I will either be injured or die on the job while working at the company.”

What would your reaction be? If you’re like most parents, you’d tell your child not to work for that company. After all, who would want any family member to work in a company where the assumption was that people will be injured or even killed?

We often hear leaders and employees who say “it’s not possible to work injury-free in our industry.” We have safe work practices that will save lives, yet are not followed. It’s like assuming that collateral damage is just a way of life. We’ve got to take a different approach if we are going to eliminate injuries in the industry.

Setting the Bar High
To attain zero injuries in the workplace, you must have a goal of zero injuries. Even more than that, you must believe zero injuries is possible and have that belief become the entire company’s philosophy. While the solution may seem simple, it works. After all, most Americans are goal-oriented people. And if you aim for something, you are likely to get it. Still not convinced?

Think about it from a different way by asking yourself these questions:
“Did the workers in your organization have an injury-free day yesterday?”
“Was anyone injured last week?”
“How about last month – was anyone injured?”

Too often, we think about safety in terms of our annual OSHA 300 logs rather than breaking it down and looking at safety in terms of days and weeks. No doubt your organization has had zero-injury weeks and days and months. It takes repeating those days and months over and over to achieve a workplace where nobody gets hurt. How do you get there?

We recommend a three-pronged approach to get your organization focused on the goal of zero injuries. First, understand the current state of safety in your industry and the common causes of serious incidents. Second, identify the major barriers to safety and work to overcome them. Third, develop an overall process for safety in your organization that everyone can relate to and understand. Given the issues described above, it’s important to understand the barriers to a zero-injury workplace.

Roadblocks to Safety Success
In utilities across the U.S. and Canada, employees and leaders often describe barriers to safety including:
• Misunderstanding of basic safety concepts,
• Poor communications between leaders and workers at all levels,
• Absence of credible leaders, and
• A shortage of experienced and qualified workers.

It doesn’t take long in some organizations to hear workers say things like:
“They’re just trying to ‘dumb us down with these safety rules”
“They don’t trust us so they think we need more rules.”
“Don’t they think we’re professionals and know how to do our jobs?”

It’s clear that a lack of understanding is at the root of employee resistance to following industry safe work practices. When employees understand that safety rules and regulations are based on years of experience and research, rather than something that a boss is “doing to them,” it helps them to accept the rules, rather than resist. Training such as the industry-specific OSHA 10-hour course developed through the electrical industry partnership helps leaders and workers gain a greater appreciation for rules and regulations and how, when properly applied, they can save lives. (www.OSHA.gov)

Greater understanding of safety concepts and the process of safety leads to better communications. If leaders will take time to listen to workers’ safety concerns prior to implementing new work practices or rules, the level of understanding will go up as will the degree of acceptance of and adherence to the rules. And, by taking time to listen to employee concerns before implementing new safety practices and rules, a leader will no doubt raise his or her credibility with the workers. Furthermore, sometimes, those conversations will help leaders challenge their own thinking. Here’s a conversation Carl had not too long ago:
One leader called to ask us, “What is being done in the industry to prevent rotator cup injuries on lineman?” Being good consultants, we always ask a question to answer the question.

“Why, are you having a lot of those types of injuries?”

“It seems that every lineman over 40 is having shoulder problems and the company is paying for a lot of surgeries.”

“Have you conducted a root-cause analysis?”

“Yes and we found out that the crimping tool they use aggravates their shoulders and the next thing you know we have a claim.”

“Have any employees offered a solution?”

“Oh, sure… they all want these fancy 24 volt battery-operated crimpers. I did line work for over 25 years before coming into management and I didn’t need one!”

“So you think this crimper is a waste of money. How are your shoulders holding up?”

“On cold days, they let me know they are there.”

“So, if you were still a lineman how would you feel about getting one of those fancy crimpers on cold days?”

“Oh, they would be great, but if I buy the tool they might not use it.”

“Well, technology has come a long way in repairing shoulders. Also, vendors have been busy solving the problem and we see most utilities providing battery power crimpers and providing the old hand-powered crimper as back-up.”

“Okay, maybe I just need to come out of the dark ages and adopt some of this new equipment. After all, it does make good sense. Thanks for your time.”

This is a typical conversation with a leader. Many times the barrier is our own beliefs and holding on to past practices and antiquated tools. Leaders committed to employee safety spend time asking employees for solutions that work. The answer is not always to spend money, but safety leaders must analyze the situation buy soliciting feedback from knowledgeable, experienced experts, and their employees.

One of the hottest concerns in the industry is the shortage of trained and qualified workers. Some companies recognize that having a good safety record and a genuine concern for worker safety are important recruiting tools – especially when you consider that industry is quite homogenous and word gets around about which companies value worker safety and which do not. One hiring supervisor in an electric utility reported that seven out of eight external candidates for a supervisor position asked about the company’s safety record and work practices.

Overcoming the barriers to safety first takes recognition of the roadblocks then addressing them with a systematic approach based on an overarching safety management process.

Developing a Zero-Injury Safety Management Process
A zero-injury safety management process first requires the philosophy that it’s possible to work effectively and efficiently with nobody getting hurt. Research shows that those who establish and use a clear standard or criteria for safety have the best results.

For examples, several electric utilities have used OSHA’s Voluntary Participation Program as a standard and have consequently been awarded the prestigious Star Award, including Entergy, PP&L, and Westar Energy. These utilities have sites which OSHA has found meet their standards for a safe workplace. (For more information, see www.OSHA.gov.) Others use the Criteria for Safety Excellence (CSE) found in the book Zero! Responsible Safety Management by Design. (see authors’ bio.) Both of these standards focus on five areas required to have an outstanding safety management process that can result in zero injuries.

Five Areas of Safety Management
Management commitment – Provision of outstanding protection to their employees through effective systems and personal actions by executives, managers, and supervisors.

Employee involvement – Employee interest and involvement in the safety and health processes at work including participation in audits, accident and incident investigations, suggestion programs, and safety committees.

Worksite analysis – A systematic approach to assessing and managing worksite hazards.

Hazard prevention and control – A commitment to workplace health and safety through preventative equipment maintenance, workplace health processes, hazard tracking methods, and emergency preparations.

Safety and health training – Ensures workers know how to perform all aspects of their job to prevent work-related injury or illness.

Often companies focus on and perform well in two or three of the five areas, yet it takes a focus on all to have a safety management process that is not over-reactive and can serve as a mechanism for creating a zero-injury organization (see illustration.)

Putting it All to Work
Electric utilities that have consistently good safety performance recognize issues in the industry as well as their own organization, identify and address the barriers to safety, and have a safety management process that focuses on zero injuries. Consider the issue surrounding pre-job briefings.

OSHA requires the employee in charge to conduct a job briefing prior to each job (1910.269(c)). Many companies require job briefings to be documented, signed by the person in charge, and turned in. We often find that employees resist documenting the briefing, or omit the activity altogether. Common reasons are:
• Job briefings aren’t important.
• We don’t have the time.
• The briefings are routine and unnecessary because many jobs are identical.
• Documented briefings are ‘CYA’ for management. (If you don’t know what CYA means, just ask someone!)

The issue is that research shows that documented job briefings can be an effective tool to reduce and eliminate injuries. Although, OSHA doesn’t require documented job briefings, it’s important to understand that it’s not always about compliance, but more about a personal commitment to preventing injuries.

A well-designed job briefing process is a catalyst for employee involvement in the safety of a particular job as it helps workers recognize and control hazards. When the document becomes part of an overall safety management process, it can provide vital information for employee training i.e. identifying training needs and providing input for curriculum development and updates.

Companies that require documented processes often rely on checklists or fill-in-the-blank forms. The content comes from a job hazard analysis conducted by the safety department workers with the same job titles, such as journeyman lineman, substation technician, or meter reader, provide information about the potential dangers they face in doing the jobs. (Examples are slips due to spilled liquids, falls from climbing or working on poles, contact with electricity.) The safety department then uses the information to develop specific job briefing forms for each type of work and provides information on how to recognize specific hazards and apply appropriate controls (abatement, procedures, or PPE). This information becomes part of employee training.

Overall, the entire process requires management commitment to provide the time and support for all the required activities and to set the expectation that employees are involved in quality job briefings.

A Safer, More Profitable Future
Having a zero injury workplace is possible in the electric utility industry If you can lead your team to go one hour without an injury, then you can lead them through many hours that turn into days, weeks, months, and years. Remember, the greatest legacy electric utility leaders can leave is that they ran a profitable business where everyone can go home every day without injury.

About the Authors
Carl Potter, CSP, CMC and Deb Potter, PhD, CMC work with organizations that target a zero-injury workplace so everyone can go home to their families every day without injury. As advocates of a zero-injury workplace, they are speakers, authors, and consultants to industry. For information about their services, visit Potter and Associates International, Inc. at www.SimplySeamlessSafety.com.