Who's to Blame?

"Someone has to pay, it has to be someone's fault, he had an accident at work, he was just doing his job".

This is often what we hear from the victims family after a serious work place accident, but whose fault was it? We need to apportion blame, we have to find someone to punish, it has to be someone's fault that's the way our system works...someone has to pay.

But Who Is Paying?

The victim's family pay with the loss of a loved one, the manager that delivers the sad news to them and the colleagues that were with him and provided first aid, they pay. As an example, last month a UK logistics company paid; they were fined £120,000 following the death of an employee who fell just two metres off the back of the truck. They paid because they didn't "ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all of their employees." Some will say this was a significant fine others will say it's a pittance. How do you put a price on a person? I think the answer is unknowable, so it's best to avoid getting in that situation in the first place.

All Accidents Are Avoidable

There is no such thing as an accident...and...all accidents are foreseeable and preventable. We prove this statement time and time again. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone is an expert in what went wrong. Everyone knows what could have been done and what should have been done, in hindsight. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, it allows us to discover the reasonable and practicable thing we should have done to prevent the accident...but because we didn't identify the risk ahead of time...we prove that we haven't delivered on our primary duty of care under the act...we didn't ensure the safety of all employees. Thus Q.E.D. Guilty!

Risk Exposure

The British logistics company above is a prime example of the increasing way that companies, and now managers and directors are being held responsible by the courts for 'accidents' that happen in their organisations. Australian organisations are also at risk of prosecution and significant fines if, while they deal in a 'nuts and bolts' way of implementing a safety management system, they don't make the effort to correct unsafe behaviours. That means identifying unsafe employee behaviour in real time and correcting those behaviours in positive ways that result in sustained behavioural change. If they don't and they give tacit approval to those unsafe behaviours they expose their businesses to very significant corporate risk, because just having a safety management system - even world's best practice - is not enough, as the Esso Longford gas plant accident demonstrated.

Closing the Risk Gap

At changedrivers we recognised there was a need to help expose these levels of risk and enable senior managers, Board members and Non-Executive Directors to understand where their businesses were at risk, and importantly, what they should do to minimise the risks and meet their duty of care responsibilities.

We need to help managers develop foresight; we need to identify and manage the risks before someone is hurt; it's too late after the fact. As a minimum we need to demonstrate that the risk has been identified even if we haven't yet corrected the failing. changedrivers can help you develop the foresight necessary to identify risks in your workplace.

If you would like to know more about how we can help you, please contact Geoff Ward on 0417 806 901 or email at geoff-ward@changedrivers.com.au