Personal Safety is the concept of employees taking responsibility for their safety and the safety
of their coworkers. It can only be achieved when we own our circumstances regardless of the
situation. It’s a mindset of not accepting anything less than every employee going home safe. With
this mindset, we create an Incident and Injury-Free culture.
Some people relate the concept of personal safety to common sense, but that can be misleading.
Common sense is a good start to staying safe, but the benefit of hindsight makes common sense a
lot more obvious after an incident. (Why did it make sense to an employee at the time of incident?)
An employee following a procedure that doesn’t recognize a specific hazard could be excused for
blindly following the procedure that puts themselves in harm’s way. An employee in the same
situation with a concept of Personal Safety will identify hazards not addressed in the procedure and
take the proper steps to ensure the work is done safely.
Self-Check
Take a minute and stop to think about your outlook and attitude toward safety. It could be all you
need to identify a potential hazard capable of causing an injury. Don’t jump off the cliff because you were told.
Question all aspects of a work procedure. Is it safe? are my co-workers affected? are other trades at risk?
