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Practice meets perfect
May/June 2023 issue

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Opinion

Why rubber chickens do not diminish the value of awards

Open-access content Monday 18th December 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

The reputation of awards ceremonies is mixed -- they are sometimes denigrated as the "rubber chicken circuit" -- which was originally the view of the late backbench MP Julian Critchley on party constituency dinners. But awards are also hard-fought for by individuals, and companies make significant efforts to secure them.

Perhaps the "rubber chicken" complainants focus too much on the awards dinners themselves, those traditional, periodic and in some ways old-fashioned gatherings often with men in black tie and women in evening dress listening (perhaps) to speeches.

In fact, far from being out of date, awards represent the most modern and far-seeing approach to driving towards better workplace performance.

There are still many workplaces that hold monthly safety and health meetings, often referred to as safety committees, during which the focus of discussion is almost exclusively on recent incidents -- either actual harm-causing happenings or the wide range of what we call near-misses.

Perhaps the 'rubber chicken' complainants focus too much on the awards dinners

Another favourite topic is inspection and audit reports that form depressing lists of non-compliances even if they are dressed up as exciting and valuable opportunities for improvement.

Almost all the discussion is about failure, actual or potential, and what will be done to make matters better. This then flows upwards, when the board insists on receiving direct reports on serious accidents, not least to demonstrate the centrality of health and safety to directors, and agonises over the accident frequency rate.

And yet most of the time most people do their work without coming to harm. Is this just irrelevant, the result of unreliable good luck? Recent discussions among safety and health practitioners have been illuminated by arguments about doing safety differently, focusing not on the occasional lapses and problems that give rise to accidents but instead looking more closely at how and why most people survive each working day without incident.

This is no radical new departure; day-to-day safety and healthy performance is precisely what awards are there to evaluate, recognise and reward. Ever since behavioural science demonstrated that reinforcing what people are doing right is much more effective than castigating those who get it wrong, awards have not just been a little gilt on the gingerbread but underline what we all need to do to achieve high performance.

While this isn't all about penguin-suited diners politely applauding colleagues, reward and recognition includes simply noticing good work and saying "thank you". The formal awards events encourage us all to look for safe and healthy working and to celebrate it.

It is nice to know, as the best leaders do, that, as we raise another glass of wine to toast a worthy winner, celebrating success has been proven to be one of the best ways to ensure that we enjoy more of it.

You may also be interested in...

 Managing the wellbeing-stress-mental health continuum

Monday 18th December 2017
The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issued Stress Management Standards in 2004 as a framework for employers to check whether they were putting workers under unreasonable pressure and depriving them of the support and resources that would allow them to work efficiently.In the global recession at the end of the decade, the corporate interest in stress waned as many organisations adjusted to budget cuts by retrenching to safety management.
Open-access content

 Why OSH need not be a second career

Monday 18th December 2017
One UK university, for example, invites its students to consider these factors: skills, interests, values and motivations, personality, contacts, qualifications and location. Are you a communicator or an organiser? it asks them. Creative or scientific? Money-oriented or into helping others? Outgoing or cautious?
Open-access content

 The Safety Anarchist: relying on human expertise and innovation, reducing bureaucracy and compliance

Wednesday 13th December 2017
Rating: His latest book offers inspiration from the brighter side of anarchism, encouraging the reader to reconsider human autonomy and self-determination, appreciate the pride of workmanship and visualise a world of work free from the coercion to comply with corporate policy and ridiculous rules in which the workers themselves had no say.
Open-access content

 Simplicity in safety investigations

Monday 11th December 2017
Rating: Long makes a virtue of this “recombinant innovation”, making new techniques by combining existing ones.
Open-access content

 X is for expertise* (and Y is for you)

Thursday 7th December 2017
Is there a difference between “competence” and “expertise”? Should we present ourselves to our colleagues as experts, with a ready solution to their problems, or just as competent peers who can provide support?A typical dictionary definition of an expert is “a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area” and definitions of the noun “expertise” all share that pairing of knowledge or skill. The use of “or” is perhaps surprising; can you be an expert with only knowledge but no skill, or skill but no knowledge?
Open-access content

 W is for worker involvement

Tuesday 21st November 2017
Clause 5.4 of ISO 45001 gives detailed instructions on measures that would show compliance with the participation requirements. These include making available the time, training and resources necessary for participation, and giving workers access to safety and health information. Equally important is the onus on top management to find out why people do not participate and then to remove the barriers. A note adds that barriers may include “failure to respond to worker inputs or suggestions”.
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