The Safety vs. Productivity Conundrum
We're all constantly making trade-offs, weighing one thing against the other to make a choice! Given this reality, just how much of an impetus do we ordinarily attribute to safety?
Reality is that we all make trade-offs at most junctures in our lives, and the same holds true for anything to do with safety as well.
While we all realise at some level or the other, that safety norms are for our own good, cold harsh reality often comes in and tips the scale against safety!
Couple this with the fact that at many times the negative effects of not adhering to safety behaviour do not necessarily result in a poor outcome at that point in time itself, and we have a recipe that courts disaster on an almost daily basis.
Take for instance the factory workers on a production line. They are constantly being appraised on their productivity numbers. Right from the supervisor, down to those running the machines, everyone has a target they’re working towards, and anything that comes in the way of them achieving that target, automatically gets deprioritized.
So how does safety fare is such a situation?
What happens when a machine gets jammed?
Is the first reaction to adhere to safety protocol and ensure that all steps are followed as per protocol?
Or is it to do some ‘jugaad’ and sort out the jam in the way that takes the least amount of time?
Unfortunately, in most cases, it is the latter response that is found to such a situation, as we have seen during the course of our work with contract workers on the shop floor.
When it is a question of one’s livelihood, the trade-off seems to be in favour of ensuring the numbers are met, rather than adhering to the safety norms that are spelt out. After all, it is but rare that non-adherence causes a truly dangerous consequence!
Another example is the study that found that urban commuters were less likely to encounter automobile accidents if they were willing to increase their commute (trip) time. This was because the shortest distance between points A & B had the greatest traffic intensity, and this inevitably led to more accidents. However, as the much touted saying goes, ‘Time is Money’, and how many of us are willing to spend that extra time, just to reduce the possibility of an accident?
The same pattern emerges when you look at the number of pedestrian accidents on Indian roads. Rather than walk all the way to the pedestrian crossing and wait until the signal turns green, there are folks darting across busy highways, trying to save those few extra minutes. The trade-off being made very consciously there again, is in favour of productivity over safety!
What if we were to examine our initial response to the covid-19 outbreak?
While news of the virus has been doing the rounds since early this year, most people went about their daily lives with nary a care. Given it hadn’t started literally knocking on our door, we all thought we’d escape it, and so decided to chase all our other goals.
Only when the seriousness of the situation became more and more evident, did grim reality set in. Only then did we start prioritising safety over anything else.
Only when it reached a tipping point, did we realise that there was no choice but to stay safe!
Looking at various examples seems to indicate that only when presented with that tipping point, the point when non-adherence to safety norms could result in disastrous consequences, only then does safety trump productivity!
And that isn’t necessarily a very heartening inference, especially as we see the effects of what that trade-off has meant for the world in these current times!