Accident prevention: Why it’s important to you Published Feb. 19, 2016 By Steve Sereette 72nd Air Base Wing Base Safety Office TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- If someone were to ask you why workplace safety is important, how would you respond? You may "know" that it's important to "keep safety in mind" as you go about your daily workplace activities, but how would you explain the reasons behind staying safe? Most companies, including your Tinker employer, have a great interest in keeping the workplace safe as safety is the employer's and management's ultimate responsibility. It involves the formation and implementation of safety programs and also involves education programs for all employees (such as Initial Job Safety Training/Air Force Form 55 documentation), all supervisors and other Management types (such as Supervisor Safety Training). You might ask why training is important. Well, for starters, in the United States, 4,679 workers were killed on the job in 2014 -- on average, almost 90 a week or more than 13 deaths every day. The nearly 3.0 million non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers in 2014 occurred at a rate of 3.2 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers. Workplace safety training teaches the employees how to comply with written rules and regulations, and how to avoid and report hazardous conditions. Safety training helps employees be prepared for the worst-case scenario. Job-related injuries are something that responsible employers most diligently seek to avoid. At Tinker, officials do their very best to educate the workforce on staying safe on the job and in their off-duty hours as well. What you do with that education is entirely up to you, you can choose to think before you act or throw caution to the wind and act carelessly. Why is it so important to prevent workplace accidents? Is it because OSHA says we have to "provide a workplace free of known health and safety hazards?" Do you view accident prevention as simply a way to avoid injury? Do you work safely just because you want to? Maybe you do it because you have been told to. Perhaps you view accident prevention as a way of keeping your section happy or your supervisor off your back. Of course a section has many reasons for wanting its employees to work safely. But employees must have a more important reason to work safely than just because your section says to. They must have a personal reason. Your reason may be your family, or even self-preservation. What would they do if you were to be injured? How about your hobbies? Would you still be able to enjoy them with a serious disability? What you do for a living is nothing more than a means toward a goal you set for yourself. That goal may be your children's education. You may plan to buy a home or a car. Maybe you want to marry after you save enough money. Maybe your goal for now is just to make it to Friday night and go out on the town. Whatever your goals, they all generally tie some way into what you do for a living. And what you do for a living could be seriously derailed by an accident. All your goals can go up in smoke if you are injured and disabled. A safety program is designed to help you reach your goals. It is not there to make your work harder or slower, or to meet some governmental guideline. Safety and accident prevention programs are designed to protect you so you may reach your goals. When an unsafe act/hazard is pointed out to you, or discovered in the workplace via a Safety inspection, the intent is to help you by eliminating obstacles or job hindrances and to ensure you arrive home in one piece, and not end the day lying on a slab of ice at the morgue. Every time you approach a project, every time you pick up a tool, every time you start a piece of equipment or machinery, think safety (it's called "Risk Assessment" or "Personal Risk Assessment"). Look for what can go wrong and eliminate that possibility before your goals come to an abrupt end. Everyone must remain vigilant because complacency could inevitably become the greatest enemy. For management, the key to employee productivity is to keep them motivated, and employees can remain motivated if they feel safe and "happy" at their workplace. This says a lot about the importance of workplace safety - it is important for the very reason of improved productivity. Safety is also very important because human resources are the most important to an organization. Human life is priceless! May we all take safety personally. Make it one of your life goals and remain focused on the "Quest for Zero" goals.