Industrial safety is governed by federal agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA), administered by employers and ultimately is the responsibility of employees. So if everyone has such a vested interest in safety why do 4.9 million workers compensation claims get filed? The short answer is that each of the three groups above make the same mistakes over and over resulting in injuries.

 

Federal Agencies shortfalls usually are related to understaffing. After a major mishap it is commonplace to learn that either a facility is overdue for an OSHA visit or inspectors simply do not follow up on noted discrepancies to verify, they have been adequately addressed. 

Employers shortfalls are threefold. First, while promoting from within is a great incentive to motivate employees safety positions are simply positions that should be recruited and not developed in house. Often individuals who came from a different department within a company have established relationships with the employees they are responsible to inspect. Also, these promoted safety personnel have a very narrow scope of safety training and experience in which any change comes with a learning curve. The second employer shortfall is that they are unaware of what level of safety specialist they should hire. Either through the best of intentions they hire an overqualified person at a high pay rate or they hire a person whose experience does not meet their needs for a lower pay rate. Unfortunately hiring an overqualified safety specialist often leads to the third shortcoming which is a failure to invest funding in quality protective equipment or solutions. Often avoiding spending a few hundred dollars ends up costing the company much more. 

While employees have the most at stake they also have the most shortfalls. I have never met with a plant manager who didn't ask me a variation of "how do I make my employees to wear their protective equipment?". The short answer is you don't, you make them want to wear it. A few shortcomings of employees are corner cutting to save time, a lack of training or knowledge, and of course the worst phrase in industrial work around the world "that is how we have always done it". 

Below are a few of the most commonly overlooked safety areas that comprise the majority of major and lethal mishaps.