Sanjay and Sophia looked out over the factory floor in dismay. They both worked in human resources management, and just a week ago they had delivered some safety training in an attempt to reduce their higher-thanaverage rate of workplace injuries. They had lectured all the employees about safety for three hours and then given them a written test. Although all employees had passed, nothing had actually changed. Sanjay and Sophia were chagrined and wondered what else they needed to do to change the culture.
As they looked out over the factory floor from the second-storey lunchroom, they began to share their observations.
“Look,” said Sanjay, “there is the CEO rushing out to talk to someone wearing only his dress shoes again. I keep telling him he needs safety shoes and safety glasses on the manufacturing floor, but he just keeps telling me he’s only out there for a minute so it is too much of a pain to change shoes and find glasses.”
While Sophia found that distressing, she was more concerned with the newly hired junior employees, whom she saw joking and pushing each other around the forklift loading area. “You know,” she told Sanjay, “I mentioned that the new hires are goofing off around the loading area, and their supervisor just said that they work hard and need to blow off a little steam now and then. He said I should leave them alone. The other day I even saw him get involved in one of their little pranks, making a guy jump out of his skin by blaring the forklift horn. When I asked him about it, he said pranks help the workers relax when they are stressed about manufacturing quotas.”
“Well, I’m not surprised they’re stressed,” said Sanjay. “After all, the entire team’s bonus is based on productivity targets, and nobody wants to be the one who lets everyone else down. If they miss their target because of one worker, the poor guy will never hear the end of it.”
“I know,” replied Sophia. “Just last week, someone came in with active pneumonia because he didn’t want his team to miss their target. I know other workers covered for him a bit, but he kept at it no matter what. I even caught him trying to take the handguard off his machine so he could work it faster. He said he was behind from coughing and needed to catch up!”
“It’s so strange,” observed Sanjay. “All these workers passed the safety test with flying colours but nobody actually does any of the stuff we talked about. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” said Sophia. “Maybe if we put some safety posters up to remind people about risks, that will help.”
Discussion Questions
1. Why have Sanjay and Sophia failed to foster a safety culture in their workplace? What specifically acts to undermine that change?
2. Will their new strategy (putting up posters) work? If yes, why? If no, why not?
3. What would they have to do to institute meaningful change in the safety culture at this organization?