Should we use punishment when an injury occurs? That is the
question Nicole Gravina, a consultant for Reaching Results, and her colleagues
aimed to answer in their presentation at the 2013 National Safety Congress and Expo.
“Oftentimes, organizations use something that I call
permanent punishers,” says Gravina, referring to disciplinary actions such as
termination or demotion that offer little opportunity for the organization as a
whole to learn from the mistake. She suggests that when possible, organizations
should instead require training for the individual who caused the incident so
that knowledge can be gained from the punishment.
Gravina notes that since people are unlikely to make the
same mistake twice, terminating an employee after an incident has occurred can
mean eliminating someone who is less likely than other workers to make that
particular mistake in the future.
Some behaviors may require termination in order to
demonstrate that managers are serious about keeping the workplace safe, so Gravina
believes that establishing 10 “deal breaker” behaviors that result in immediate
termination can be useful as long as all other behaviors are kept open for
discussion.
Punishment typically reduces behavior, and although it
should ideally reduce unsafe actions, it most often reduces reporting behavior,
says Gravina. If workers fear punishment, they are less likely to report
near-misses and minor incidents. Not only can punishment discourage honesty, it
also often damages relationships and morale by fostering a culture of distrust
between workers and managers.
According to Gravina, punishment places the responsibility
for safety on bosses rather than on the entire workforce, and without
punishment, workers are likely to feel responsible for their own actions. “The
injury itself is most likely the punisher,” says Gravina. “Ninety-nine percent
of the population are going to feel really bad if they [cause an injury] to
someone else or themselves.”
To encourage personal responsibility for mistakes and incidents,
Gravina advises asking the worker who caused the incident what s/he thinks is
an appropriate disciplinary action. Often, workers assign themselves
punishments that are harsher than any action their supervisor would have
considered. Other times, workers provide useful information about how a similar
incident can be prevented in the future.
Gravina adds that communication about safety must be made
understandable for everyone involved. Workers sometimes display unsafe behavior
in response to mixed messages and competing reinforcers created by different
levels of management. For example, a worker’s direct supervisor may tell him or
her to get a certain job done by a certain time when upper management has not
provided the funding to supply tools needed for completing the task safely.
Safety professionals often create poor communication about safety as well by
sending safety e-mails that many workers are unable to decipher. Gravina says
the average safety e-mail is written for a 16th-grade reading level, yet the
average reading level of workers is 7th grade.
Workplaces can benefit greatly when managers talk to workers
one-on-one about safety and solicit input from their employees. “We have to
know what’s currently happening,” Gravina says. “We can only do that if we make
[an environment in which] people are more honest about what’s currently
happening.”