Safety equals skill. Safety practices are not something added to a task nor something extra to be done alongside the job itself. Safety practices are part of the craft itself, just as central to the task as the care with taping that gives drywall quality, or the precision control that makes someone master with a backhoe. This means that it is impossible to have a skilled craftsperson which is thoughtless about safety because doing a job well means minimizing risk. Skill and safety cannot be separated.
- Safety means security. Safety practices are not important just because we put a priority on human safety. They are also important because they are good business. The better a company's safety record, the more it saves on losses (property, time, and production, compensation costs, etc.). Every accident/incident - even if there is no serious damage or injury - costs the company money, because, to some extent, it interrupts the smooth flow of productivity. Of course, the more serious it is the more it costs in terms of labor time lost, if nothing else. Therefore, the better the safety record the healthier the company is, and the more competitive the company can be. That translates into more work and better security for all employees.
- Safety is what YOU make it. No matter how much you talk about safety, no matter how important you tell people to is, safety will be as important to your crew members as it is to you - and no more. If safety is not a genuine concern for you, it won't be for them. If you talk a safety game but take short-cuts around it, so will they. They are the ones who must make the worksite a safe one, but whether or not they do so, comes down to you - not what you say or threaten, but what you do yourself, day in and day out.
What that means is that safety is not just another item on your job description, another headache for you to think about and schedule in somewhere. Safety is as important as your responsibility to "get the job done." It is tied to every part of your job as a supervisor, and you need to incorporate it into everything you do.
