Safety Stew – Will They Come Back for More?

Safety Stew Ingredients

• Fillers: accident investigation; worker comp management; record-keeping
• Inactive ingredients:  environmental management; security; human resources
• Active ingredients: management commitment; risk analysis; training; supervision; plans and procedures; safety promotion

The world of workplace safety, or safety stew for the sake of discussion, is made up of a variety of ingredients.  Many of the ingredients are inactive or just fillers as they may have little or no impact — it is the active ingredients that are important and essential to the success of the Stew.  Of course, this is measured by how many people eat the stew and come back for more!

It’s important that the safety stew is not overwhelmed or dominated by the fillers and inactive ingredients.  If this happens, fewer people will eat it and are less likely to try it again, even with a new and improved recipe.  Additionally, when inactive ingredients overwhelm the stew, it is an indication of bad ingredients, not following the recipe, or not blending and cooking the ingredients properly. So if we apply our stew analogy to workplace safety, the more attention paid to the active ingredients of safety will result in a flourishing Safely Working Environment.  The Safely Working Project is focused on the most important active ingredients of the Safety Stew.  How’s your Stew?

(Originally published 11/4/14)