A Job to Die For?

In prepping to teach a class in safety and risk management for Northern Illinois University’s SHRM Learning System program, I stumbled across a disturbing number. In 2009, 4340 workers died on American jobs. That, my friends, is a shame.

Granted the numbers have dropped from the previous year (5214), it is still a number to be concerned about. Those 4340 deaths in the single year is almost more than the total number of US deaths in Iraq (4429) since the start of that war in 2001.  It is more than 3 times the number of US deaths in Afghanistan (1418) since the start of operations there.

In a historical perspective, it is many more than died at Pearl Harbor (2402) on December 7, 1941 by almost 2000.  Compared to the bloodiest day of on the Western Hemisphere, the battle of Antietam in the Civil War (over 3500 dead), it is almost 800 more workplace deaths.  A more recent comparison, deaths on 9/11 were 2977 compared to the 4340 and 5214 workplace deaths in 2009 and 2008.

My point in showing these comparisons is that for the most part, all workplace deaths are avoidable.  Throughout my HR career (mostly in manufacturing), safety has been part of my job descriptions and duties.  It is one I take very seriously because while all other HR duties are important, safety IS a life and death matter.  If a worker’s check gets screwed up, they will still go home that night.  If something drastically goes wrong in safety, someone can die.  Granted many HR professionals do not handle safety, I still believe it needs to be a stronger emphasis in the profession, especially taking into consideration the increase of workplace violence and bullying over the last few years.

As I said, I believe that most (if not all) workplace deaths and injuries can be prevented.  HR, especially trench HR, needs to be trained better to spot and correct safety issues and eliminate unsafe conditions and acts.

Too steep a price for practice….

Not sure how many of you scattered across the country have heard about the death of a student employee of the Notre Dame football team. Wednesday, during a windstorm described as “the storm of the century” (similar to the one that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald on the Great Lakes) a student whose job was to video tape part of a practice by the Notre Dame football team, was put up in a portable scissor lift to tape practice.   You have seen these portable lifts in many industrial settings, it is on wheels and can be moved from place to place.

These are not the most stable of working platforms and have been up in similar ones myself for various reasons.  Those occasions have been all inside of plants and the feeling for me was an uncomfortable one.  For use outside, they are not recommended for use in winds of higher than 25 miles an hour.  The winds that day were in excess of 50, with deadly results.  The scissor lift was blown over and the student employee was killed in the fall.

My point to all of this is we have to take our employees well being into consideration no matter what.  For those of us who have spent time in trench HR positions, especially in the manufacturing field, we have to make sure that the desires and normal procedures of the operational aspects of our organizations do not take precedent over common sense.  I have had safety as part of many past jobs and have on several occasions shut down or reconfigured activities done under the guise of  “this is how we normally do it” without taking extraordinary circumstances into consideration.  Video taping of practices are a common occurrence in all major football programs and normally done without a thought.  Wednesday was not a normal day.  Details of the story can be found here:  http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-notredame-accident

I guess what I am saying is that someone has to be the “common sense” of the organization.  In many organizations of small to medium size, that is the HR professional.  We need to “protect” the organizations interests and many times, that includes protecting the well being of those who work for the organization.  Hopefully, this horrible accident will stand as a reminder of that obligation.