“Effective people know that time is the limiting factor,” said management guru Peter Drucker. “Time is always in exceedingly short supply.” It’s irreplaceable, totally inelastic — you cannot buy, hire, rent, replicate or outsource time.
OSHA is under Republican guns this winter for what critics consider its job-killing regulations. They are job killers because they are time killers.
It takes time to put on personal protective equipment. It takes time to decipher OSHA’s injury recordkeeping rules. Lockout-tagout and confined space entry procedures, per OSHA requirements, take time. Process safety audits take time. Just ask BP.
An OSHA ergonomics rule, as any overburdened businessman would tell you, would have been the mother of all time-killing workplace regs. Think of how production lines would have slowed. All these assessments, job rotations, job redesigns… tick, tick, tick, the clock ticks away. Products must get out the door. Just in time. Quotas for production and sales must be met. Bonuses hinge on early completion of projects. The worse that can happen: time stops. The line stops. Downtime.
Too many workers in meat plants and other assembly jobs cannot get the time off to go to the bathroom. Rest breaks have to be bargained for or legislated. Time is money.
Observation and feedback sessions take time. Job safety analyses take time. Safety meetings way too frequently go into overtime. Training takes time and employees away from their work. So does a serious incident investigation. A wall-to-wall inspection. Or filling out a perception survey. Owning up to employee perceptions about safety, or the lack thereof, takes even more time.
Often when execs reject a safety professional’s proposal, they’re looking at their watches, so to speak. Doing the mental math. You want to bring in a speaker? Play games? Practice with the fire department? Have an evacuation drill? How long will it take?
Why aren’t safety issues on the agenda for board meetings? These are busy, harried, burdened people. Time is precious.
Time is the enemy of safety, but safety as traditionally practiced often wastes more time. One of Drucker’s four major time-wasters is lack of foresight. In safety it’s called fire-fighting, the recurrent crisis. Management by frenzied reactions.
“Malorganization” is another of Drucker’s time-wasters. Also known as death by meetings. “Meetings have to be the exception rather than the rule,” said Drucker. In safety, meetings are the norm. They are entirely expected. You have safety committee meetings, safety steering committee meetings, safety circles, safety rallies, safety contests, safety training sessions, safety champions meetings, team meetings.
An executive who knows little or nothing about safety judges by appearances, and it appears safety involves one meeting after the other.
Miscommunication wastes way too much time. And safety, which relies so heavily on communication, is very vulnerable to time wasted by employees and supervisors trying to figure out the latest procedure, posting, labeling, warning, protocol, compliance directive, letters of interpretation.
How to slay the great enemy of safety?
Be conscious of your requests for time, in all their many forms, and how they affect organizational behavior and priorities. Better to leave ‘em wanting more, said the comedian, cutting short his act. Apply that to your speeches. Avoid techno babble, long stories, bad jokes, unprepared presentations, bitch sessions and compound sentences. Omit unnecessary words. KISS. But do take the time to ask an employee how he’s doing. The rapport-building is worth your time.
OSHA is under Republican guns this winter for what critics consider its job-killing regulations. They are job killers because they are time killers.
It takes time to put on personal protective equipment. It takes time to decipher OSHA’s injury recordkeeping rules. Lockout-tagout and confined space entry procedures, per OSHA requirements, take time. Process safety audits take time. Just ask BP.
An OSHA ergonomics rule, as any overburdened businessman would tell you, would have been the mother of all time-killing workplace regs. Think of how production lines would have slowed. All these assessments, job rotations, job redesigns… tick, tick, tick, the clock ticks away. Products must get out the door. Just in time. Quotas for production and sales must be met. Bonuses hinge on early completion of projects. The worse that can happen: time stops. The line stops. Downtime.
Too many workers in meat plants and other assembly jobs cannot get the time off to go to the bathroom. Rest breaks have to be bargained for or legislated. Time is money.
Observation and feedback sessions take time. Job safety analyses take time. Safety meetings way too frequently go into overtime. Training takes time and employees away from their work. So does a serious incident investigation. A wall-to-wall inspection. Or filling out a perception survey. Owning up to employee perceptions about safety, or the lack thereof, takes even more time.
Often when execs reject a safety professional’s proposal, they’re looking at their watches, so to speak. Doing the mental math. You want to bring in a speaker? Play games? Practice with the fire department? Have an evacuation drill? How long will it take?
Why aren’t safety issues on the agenda for board meetings? These are busy, harried, burdened people. Time is precious.
Time is the enemy of safety, but safety as traditionally practiced often wastes more time. One of Drucker’s four major time-wasters is lack of foresight. In safety it’s called fire-fighting, the recurrent crisis. Management by frenzied reactions.
“Malorganization” is another of Drucker’s time-wasters. Also known as death by meetings. “Meetings have to be the exception rather than the rule,” said Drucker. In safety, meetings are the norm. They are entirely expected. You have safety committee meetings, safety steering committee meetings, safety circles, safety rallies, safety contests, safety training sessions, safety champions meetings, team meetings.
An executive who knows little or nothing about safety judges by appearances, and it appears safety involves one meeting after the other.
Miscommunication wastes way too much time. And safety, which relies so heavily on communication, is very vulnerable to time wasted by employees and supervisors trying to figure out the latest procedure, posting, labeling, warning, protocol, compliance directive, letters of interpretation.
How to slay the great enemy of safety?
Be conscious of your requests for time, in all their many forms, and how they affect organizational behavior and priorities. Better to leave ‘em wanting more, said the comedian, cutting short his act. Apply that to your speeches. Avoid techno babble, long stories, bad jokes, unprepared presentations, bitch sessions and compound sentences. Omit unnecessary words. KISS. But do take the time to ask an employee how he’s doing. The rapport-building is worth your time.
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