Dale Lesinski and Kathy Trahan
We make decisions about safety every moment of every day. Most of the time we make these decisions without actually giving them much thought — speeding through a yellow traffic light that’s about to turn red, standing on a chair instead of a ladder, talking on the phone while driving, etc. According to DiVal Safety Equipment Vice President of Sales & Marketing Dale Lesinski, if we stop and think about four people we would never want to see harmed in any way, most — if not all — of these decisions would be altered.
“We need to be safe ourselves because our actions or inactions affect those four people,” Lesinski explained during the Louisiana Governor’s Safety & Health Conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “Remind your team members of the four people they have in their lives who are the reasons why they need to be safe.”
According to Lesinski, there are also four reasons that cause accidents, which include environment, training, procedures and behavior. Of these four, behavior is by far the leading contributor to injuries and accidents in the workplace.
“Despite coming from all walks of life or working in different industries, your safety impacts the bottom line — always,” Lesinski said. “There’s a direct correlation between safety and quality. The safest companies deliver the highest quality.”
Putting safety and the bottom line into perspective, Lesinski said if a Frito-Lay employee goes a year without experiencing a lost-time or recordable accident, it is the equivalent of that employee producing three truckloads of Doritos® all by himself.
“This is an example of an economic impact when nothing happens,” Lesinski said. “The economic impact is the same for the oil and gas industry but with different products.
“The fact is we as humans are not wired to be safe. That is why the conventional approach to employee safety often delivers meager results. The only way to get employees to value their own safety is to make it about them.”
Lesinski uses humor, audience participation and real-world situations to motivate attendees to value their own personal safety and watch out for others through “Safe 4 the Right Reasons.”
“‘Safe 4 the Right Reasons’ can be the foundation of your safety culture,” Lesinski said. “It can be easily incorporated into a safety campaign so you can market your safety message in a positive manner, and it also allows employees to eliminate at-risk situations through an observation process.”
For more information, visit www.divalsafety.com or call (713) 475-8080.
