There’s few people more qualified to talk about the written word and it’s role in health and safety, and that’s my guest today Kevin Jones from safetyatworkblog.com. On the other hand, I brought along a pretty biased view of the written word, which becomes pretty obvious when I turn a debate into a courtroom prosecution of the written word.
It’s an interesting listen, and should get us all thinking about that well-worn communication tool, which so often is not the right tool for the job.
So that’s two metaphors (a courtroom trial, and tools) in the space of two paragraphs. I think I’ll stop typing now!
One last thing, I mentioned during the introduction a bit of background on ‘Robens-style legislation, as context for Kevin’s comments, which will help our overseas listeners understand what he is talking about. If you want to learn more, I found this paper quite helpful
https://regnet.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/2015-05/WorkingPaper_10_0.pdf
Let’s get to know each other! Connect with Safety on Tap on LinkedIn, or me Andrew Barrett. If Facebook is more your thing, check out @safetyontap
If you want to get in touch with me, send me an email…I actually reply personally! andrew@safetyontap.com
Here’s Kevin and I with our barrister’s wigs on (it was his idea!)
Kevin is very well spoken and has the experience and breadth of knowledge to boot. This is a great discussion and although you put up a good case against the written word Andrew, against Kevin you had no hope. For those who haven’t read Kevin’s work, you MUST check out http://www.safetyatworkblog.com
I agree that less is more when it comes to Safety Management Systems documentation. However I believe there is still a need for written word documents.
Written word is important when a ‘standard’ needs to be communicated to various people over time – it should eliminate the risk of ‘Chinese whispers’ resulting in faulty transfer of ‘information, instruction and training’.
Safety documentation should be written in plain English (or other languages as necessary for NESB workers) and, if written well, should be the foundation for worker training at the task level.
Eg:
1: a Safe Operating Procedure (SOP) should clearly explain how to use/maintain a piece of high risk plant such as a chain saw.
2: A Safe Work Procedure (SWP) should clearly show how to perform a high risk task safely, in particular identifying safety critical step sequence, and should reference relevant SOPs eg: “Cutting down a tree using a chain saw”.
If these documents are written well they may be used to train new workers in a ‘standard’ way to perform a task safely. Once trained workers may not need to read the documents again unless changes are made but they remain available for reference and future training purposes.
Hey Les. Since this episode, I’ve come to realise that we had somewhat of an artificial debate – two sides of one issue, both extreme, and binary (either/or). I love how you’ve reflected on this in your own context, which is what this episode was designed to achieve – helping us all to click out of automatic mode, and ask the question ‘what is it for?’. That leads us to how do we use it, how useful is it (and to whom), etc etc.
This episode is good listening alongside Episode 92 ‘What’s it For?’ which expanded my thinking on this informed with a little more nuance than the debate with Kevin (http://safetyontap.com/ep092-whats-andrew-barrett/), and has led me to collaborate with Dave Provan on the upcoming ‘Safety Clutter Scorecard’ which we’re making freely available (get on the early list at http://safetyontap.com/clutter/), to help everyone use a structured approach to working out what is the documentation for, and whether it is useful, or clutter.
Thanks for sharing Les!