By Flor Martinez, business development manager, 口交视频 Services
Building a Culture of Safety
One thing that鈥檚 stood out to me and that I鈥檝e come to value about our industry is the emphasis placed on building a culture of safety.
Recently, I was thinking about one preventative safety tactic in particular 鈥� situational awareness 鈥� and the best practices surrounding it. Who better to answer my questions than the leaders in safety throughout our family of companies?
The following safety contributors compiled their thoughts regarding situational awareness.
- Adrienne Jones, 口交视频 and Bermex assistant safety manager
- Bobby Purvis, 口交视频 safety consulting services manager
- Keith Pancake, 口交视频 and Bermex safety manager
- M.K. Youngblood, 口交视频 Pacific safety manager
In your own words, describe situational awareness.
鈥淪ituational awareness is like emergency management; it is all-encompassing. Keeping your head on a swivel as you realize that the situation you are in can change without warning 鈥� good or bad. Unfortunately, the bad is what we train for,鈥� says Youngblood.
Jones also shared, 鈥淪imply put, situational awareness is knowing what鈥檚 going on around you. When something happens, humans usually have two responses: the emotional knee-jerk response or the planned, cognitive response. Situational awareness allows us to react to a situation with composure or prevent a negative situation in the first place. One of the most important goals of using situational awareness is to master the calm, planned response.鈥�
Why is it important to be situationally aware in our industry?
Pancake explains, 鈥淲e fill a unique niche in what is now being considered a craft industry due to the skillset required to work around the variety of hazards present. Most of our employees work alone, and many in remote locations with a lot of variables from terrain, animals, and interaction with many of our utility partner鈥檚 valued customers and the public. Being caught unaware of the recognized hazards can have serious consequences.鈥�
Jones includes, 鈥淢astering situational awareness allows us to observe, interpret, plan, and be intentional about the choices we make. The more intentional we are, the safer our choices.鈥�
How can employees practice situational awareness?
Practice makes progress. From my conversations with our organization鈥檚 safety leaders, I learned there鈥檚 no definite right or wrong way to practice situational awareness.
Purvis offers several ways to practice situational awareness, including:
- Practice the SLAM method (Stop, Look, Assess, Manage)
- Understand the pace of your environment
- Beware of electronic distractions
- Have an exit plan
- Speak up when dangerous situations occur
- Recognize team member tendencies
- Prevent fatigue
- Expand visibility when possible
鈥淧lay the 鈥榃hat If鈥� game,鈥� says Youngblood. 鈥淲hat if this dog jumps the fence, what if that car swerves, what if I slip, having that mindset keeps me on my toes and helps me be my best advocate for safety.鈥�
鈥淎 helpful visual for me when I think about situational awareness is the OODA Loop developed by former United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd,鈥� says Jones. 鈥淭his teaches us to Observe, Orient, Decide, and then Act.鈥�
Explain the different levels of situational awareness.
Pancake notes, 鈥淢any organizations follow Marine Lieutenant Colonel and self-defense expert Jeff Cooper鈥檚 four-level color code: white (unaware), yellow (aware), orange (alert) red (alarm), and black (engage). I鈥檝e seen several utilities that base their situational awareness training around his model for years. We gain awareness through a risk assessment and can enter the alert, ready to act once we conduct our job safety analysis and pre-job brief. By staying out of the serene, relaxed state on the job we can usually avoid entering the black phase.鈥�
Youngblood added, 鈥淭here are generally four levels of situational awareness:
- Unaware. A person who is not using their situational awareness.
- Situationally aware. Actively scanning your direct environment.
- Threat. Identifying a potential threat.
- Action. After recognizing the threat, take definitive action to avoid getting hurt. That may be escaping the threat and running, getting behind some cover, or defending yourself.鈥�
Is it possible to lose situational awareness? If so, how?
鈥淪ituation awareness may be lost because of fatigue, distractions, stressful situations, high workload, vigilance failures, poorly presented information, forgetting key information, and poor mental models,鈥� shares Purvis.
Pancake also notes, 鈥淎bsolutely, life today is full of more information than a human can process at once. Couple this with any type of mental, emotional, financial or stresses at home and it鈥檚 really easy to lose focus on the task at hand.鈥�
Practice makes progress.
A particular quote from a by Jerry Staton, an 口交视频 operations manager, resonates with me: The energy you spend in evaluating every situation for potential hazards delivers an excellent return on investment. Over time, this exercise will become natural and require less effort.鈥�
If you are threatened or feel a situation is unsafe, our safety team recommends relocating to a safe place and communicating.
Relocate
- Relocate if you have been assaulted or someone has brandished a weapon
- If there is no imminent danger, then notify work management
- Note: A threat can be verbal or physical
Communicate
- Call 911
- Notify work management after contacting the police
- Complete an incident report
