Safety is not about people

Working safely and sustainably, what exactly is that?

After 30 years of standing on the sidelines, yelling for someone to put on armor and asking if the installation is locked (and if so, how?) and after creating yet another document (which is then not read), it finally dawned on me:

Security is not about people.

But about what?

It’s about regulation, a license to operate, liability and all sorts of other unpopular terms.

As HSEs, we work with the very best of intentions, but really mostly to show the organization how well we are doing and how well we care for our people.

And it does!

But despite those good intentions, a lot of time and energy goes into complying with all the laws and regulations.

And isn’t that exactly at the expense of the safety of our people?

I think so.

As the daughter of a construction contractor, the blood creeps where it cannot go.

After finally selling a difficult (construction) project in the Netherlands, my new husband and I decided three years ago to change course and emigrate to France. There I experienced what safety is, what working safely is, and especially what it is not.

Because it is not as simple as it seems.

As a business owner, or as an individual who wants to refurbish an old watermill, there is so much on your mind. There are so many things you need to pay attention to, and especially if you have employees, or work in an industry with hazardous materials, or in construction.

And does all this regulation about safety and the environment really help make it safer for your people?

Well no, not really.

Large companies are using digital systems to manage their HSE issues, the idea being that by generating more data, there will be a better understanding of the most risky activities so that targeted action can be taken on them.

So:

More data = more insight = less risky activities

The idea is that fewer manual operations will allow the safety man/woman to stay on the shop floor more.

In practice, this is not so. Because as more data can (and therefore must) be generated, more and more work also comes, and therefore more data.

So the reality then is:

More data = more insight = more work = more data.

And so on.

The same goes for safety and environmental laws and regulations. It’s a lot, it’s complex, and there’s only more to come. The poor entrepreneur is expected to know it all, act on it, and keep up with the constant changes. Just try to live up to it!

1001 safety rules

When I started building my watermill in France, I experienced the differences, and also the parallels with Holland. I had to do it myself, without help. Except my dear father’s, of course.

Paws in the clay yourself, hammer in hand, on scaffolding (also self) built of wood, laying roof tiles eight feet high and being confronted daily with dead trees threatening to fall on your house.

Or leaks from an asbestos roof.

Or a river that regularly bursts its banks.

Or a non-insulated house with a wood-burning stove.

Because how do you get good firewood?

And so I could go on and on.

Only after all these experiences did the penny drop: it’s not all that easy to comply with all those 1001 safety rules! And then you start prioritizing and abandoning a lot as well.

Call in auxiliaries? Tricky. Because, of course, you don’t know the language or don’t know it well enough. And even in France there are regulations. Bureaucracy was pretty much invented there, you might say. And that is not meant to make your life easier.

On the contrary.

In my opinion, working safely and sustainably does not start with rules or systems, but with awareness. By first understanding what safety is really about in practice, we create room to approach it differently. Less from should, more from doing. For me, that is the basis of how I look at HSE, and what my work at SecuDura is built on.

What you see on ‘Ik Vertrek’ is all true

Everything you see on “Ik vertrek,” “Het Roer Om,” or whatever other moving and remodeling programs they’ve come up with: it all adds up.

These programs also do show how organized the Netherlands is and how the Dutch do not let themselves be known. Despite setbacks, they persevere. They want to do business, build something for the future, and they think anything is possible. Myself included.

Unlike the French, for example: they are quick to think it is all good as it is and generally have fewer ambitions to grow their business and achieve something.

As a result, roofers are full for years and hiring a crane only works if you know certain people, and so on.

Whether it is also fun? Yes indeed! It puts you two feet on the ground. You face challenges you couldn’t have imagined beforehand, and life is full of variety.

No more sitting at a computer every day.

No more sitting in traffic jams every day on the way to work.

Instead, we are outside almost all day, buffeting in all weathers, doing physically demanding work (how about ergonomics?), and feeling stronger than ever! Because the human body wasn’t made to sit all day, and half an hour a day of exercise or sports doesn’t solve that problem either.

Changing my lifestyle basically meant; doing something other than computer work. And in the Netherlands, that alone is a challenge.

So do you want to change your lifestyle? Emigrate to another country!

Bare bottom

To be honest, I’ve been working on this project in France for a while now, and I find that sometimes I just accept unsafe situations. Both for myself and for another person.

I find that hooking up with a harness also has a very unsafe component to it. After all, you have to constantly unhook the line and rehook it elsewhere while working at altitude. Sure, using two lines is an option, but that also adds more ballast.

Or that I allowed the men to work on the floor with a handheld circle room instead of from a decent workbench, whereas I just have one. But yes … picking up the workbench and dragging it up to the second floor is also a job in itself.

Or when the shield on my new grinder, which was supposed to make the tool safer, came off very quickly and made it unsafe. And yes, the shield is no longer there.

Of course I make sure the ladder is in the right position, get someone there if necessary or secure it if I can. I’m not crazy (read: I don’t want to die). And when my father broke down the scaffolding and was balancing on two planks at the risk of his life at a height of nine meters, I didn’t like it one bit. His thought process: ‘Better him than his daughter’.

But this situation was really not acceptable, and yet I couldn’t stop him from doing it.

Of course, there is more

As a woman in construction, you have to prove yourself in everything. Sitting on the roof doing my weekly job of laying tiles, a Frenchman comes by and says, Tu fais ça toute seule? looking at me so pityingly. But yes, the work has to be done and anything you can do yourself, you do yourself!

Let’s see: I lug everything (too) heavy, because yes, the work has to be done. I am a woman who takes (okay, appropriate) risks, because I want the work done, and patience is not exactly a trait with which I am richly endowed.

So I push on, I buffalo, I struggle, even when I’m tired and sore. But oh well, it doesn’t matter. It’s always better than sitting at a computer all day. And yes, I really mean that.

Conclusion: you only really start to see unsafe situations when you roll up your sleeves yourself.

So when do you actually work safely?

If you sit at a computer and figure out for someone else how to do it, how does that help the employee who:

• does what it has to do
• must have the work done (with pressure from the manager)
• like to go home on time
• won’t stop the line (because production must go on!)
• Does not feel or even want to feel his/her body (if it hurts)
• don’t feel the long-term effects at all
• and still believes he or she is young and immortal?

From this line of thinking, I ask myself the question: what would move me to do things differently? What can I do, for myself and for those working with me, and perhaps many more people, to handle it better?

So at SecuDura, I am always looking for ways to make security fit the reality of work. Because solutions that only make sense on paper won’t help anyone.