Safety professionals want and need to have their voices heard by industry. But how can such a voice, and the accompanying message be discerned amongst all the distractions and the internal competition for resources and time? What is one way that their voice can be known and effectively used to contribute to one's company's mission? A place to begin may have to be in changing the perceptions that others have toward safety and quite possibly changing the perceptions that others have towards them. Ultimately this will mean designing a vision and deploying a strategy for safety and taking steps to align their efforts with that of their company's mission.
What about changing perceptions regarding safety? Similar to professionals who work within various other functions, safety professionals may have to change perceptions that are held by others towards them and the primary work they support. Individuals who work in the human resources arena have had to fight to change negative perceptions about their functional area. In a way, they have had to reinvent themselves as organizational partners. As an example, in the late 1980's a survey of approximately 1,500 human resources practitioners was taken with a number of questions posed requesting opinions as to why their department should be supported and maintained. In response, and in order of frequency, reasons provided were:
to keep the company out of court;
creating and maintaining standards, consistency, and equity;
improving productivity and profits;
developing people; and
providing recruiting services.
Notice that the first two reasons for maintaining a fully functioning human resources department are largely regulatory-driven with the push coming from outside the company. These same two reasons involve complying with various rules and regulations. Continuing, it seems that the third reason, regarding productivity and profits, and the fourth, developing people are most appropriate and applicable to almost any mission statement. By trying to develop people and by helping to improve productivity, the future of both the company and the individual can be placed on a more substantial foundation.
In much the same way, many safety professionals continue to promote safety as a way to avoid penalties or to keep the company out of court. But should those two goals be the heart of our mission as safety professionals? Are those the only reasons for our continued existence within our organizations? Practitioners of safety can often find themselves wrestling with this dilemma. Working towards meeting external demands and penalty avoidance and providing strategies and tactics to move the organization to another level of safety performance. Table 1 highlights various cultural orientations with regard to safety in what is termed a "Traditional Compliance-Based Orientation."
