Visible signs of disorder, disrepair, hazards and risk-taking in a work environment that are left unattended can signal to workers that an organization is indifferent to safety. What were originally minor, or isolated hazards, can become more serious and widespread hazards. This can happen with high performing and mature organizations, and in less mature and developing organizations. This is hazard creep. It can spread and endanger workers with escalating and/or multiplying risks and possibly destabilize the work environment.
How Hazard Creep Occurs:
- A roof leak develops, resulting in an accumulation of water on the floor. Over time a few smaller leaks occur, and a minor slip hazard becomes a bigger, more serious hazard because of inattention or identification failures.
- A machine guard is removed to service a piece of equipment and is not replaced following service. Since this guard was not replaced, other machine guards in the area are also removed over time for convenience and machines without protection are no longer viewed as a risk.
- Housekeeping and workplace organization begins to decline because of staffing reductions and continual turnover on a particular shift. Other shifts take note – of the decline, not the causes — and begin to lessen their efforts as the area becomes more disorganized and hazardous as a result.
Our risk tolerance increases as hazard creep proceeds. We learn to work around the hazards. Risks become normalized, and we no longer see them or think about them. Why bother to look for hazards or report them when no action is being taken, and no one seems to care? The rigor of hazard identification, assessment and control has been lost. And more hazards are likely to creep in.
How does the presence of hazards become acceptable in a work environment? It is a matter of expectations. If we fail to address a trip hazard and leave it alone, it changes the standard of expectation (we now expect to see more trip hazards) and more trip hazards may creep in and become accepted.
Safety Expectations Reflect Strong Beliefs
To prevent hazard creep, we must be able to identify, assess and rectify hazards consistent with a standard of care or expectation. Mature safety cultures have strong expectations. The bar is set high. If the standard is lowered or ignored; if the expectation becomes a rhetorical-only, empty belief or is allowed to lapse, it is likely that more hazards will develop or existing hazards will worsen. Insignificant problems can escalate into more significant issues if left unaddressed. And whatever strength the safety culture possessed deteriorates due to hazard creep.
Hazard creep’s potentially injurious outcomes
1
Workstation or stairway lighting is poor and not replaced. Low or nonexistent lighting has become accepted and the likelihood of slips, trips and falls increases.
2
Floor safety markings, zones and boundaries fade and are not restored. Walking or transporting equipment on the floor can become a risk. Pedestrians may be struck or vehicles may collide.
3
Safety signage is partially or totally covered, dirty or missing. Safety communication is compromised. Workers may enter confined spaces, robotic boundaries, traffic flows, unsupported trenches or risk being hit by falling objects from elevated work.
4
Locks and tags for isolating energized equipment are lost and not replaced. Their absence subverts lockout-tagout procedures. They are not a priority it seems, and the risk of serious injury escalates.
5
Aging equipment is not replaced and remains operable, if unpredictable. Maintenance is seen as reactive, not preventive and proactive, and workers learn to improvise, if necessary, instead of submitting work orders.
In each case, the standard of care or expectation has been lessened or ignored. More hazards creep in and subvert the safety culture.
The Human Dimension
Hazard creep also has a human dimension, in the form of behaviors that become more risk-taking and attitudes that become apathetic or hostile to a standard of safety. If these changes are ignored or not challenged over time, a new norm of deviation takes hold and spreads.
Short cuts and horse play are not confronted. Perhaps safety supervision slackens due to production priorities, or the number of supervisors is reduced. Personal protective equipment use is not enforced, and noncompliance spreads. A behavior-based safety process has lost its novelty, freshness and energy. The number of observations dwindle, feedback becomes less frequent, and the BBS effort becomes a hollowed-out pencil-whipping exercise. The credibility of the BBS process is lost and more hazards—behavioral, attitudinal or physical — may creep in.
Preventing the Creep
To prevent hazard creep, a non-negotiable standard of expectation must be set for a robust and proactive hazard identification process. The number of hazards identified, assessed and controlled, when necessary, will be tracked to ensure process visibility, credibility, accountability and a sense of ownership by all those engaged – senior leaders, supervisors, employees. If the outcome, the number of hazards identified and assessed begins to backslide, individuals will not be blamed. It is the processes, or system, used for identifying and assessing hazards that will be examined.
More mature organizations possess expectations shaped by W. Edwards Deming’s thinking, as expressed in his book, “Out of Crisis.” Deming estimated that 94 percent of most troubles and most possibilities for improvement originated with systems – not people. He saw huge waste directed at blaming people for bad results. He wanted to focus the improvement on the area with the greatest possibility for results.
If hazard identification and assessment is not producing the outcomes expected, what system factors might be getting in the way? Training may be subpar. Hazard hunts, audits and other hazard ID exercises could be rushed or incomplete. Leadership may not value or emphasize the need for critical thinking. Critical thinkers are curious, eager to learn, skeptical, open-minded and unbiased. Evidence and reasoning are respected. Clarity and precision are emphasized. Adopting different points of view is essential. Curiosity, questioning, clarity and precision are all necessary if high expectations for hazard identification and assessment are to be met.
Visual Literacy: A Core Competency of Hazard Identification
How employees are trained is pivotal to identify hidden, obscure and even hazards so obvious they aren’t recognized when running on auto-pilot. How many employees are actually trained to see better?
Visual Literacy has been taught in art education for decades and can be developed as a core competency to slow down; look, observe and see in more acute detail; and be able to describe what we see and take steps to mitigate problems. This improves our ability to detect incremental hazard creep in advance of consequences and prevent potential incidents. Studies have shown that improving an individual’s Visual Literacy can improve “seeing skills” by as much as 35-40 percent.
Even work that has exposure to immediate and serious hazards, such as found in robotics, roofing, confined spaces, electrical work, welding and manual lifting, is susceptible to hazard creep. The danger is real and, in some cases, ever-present, but psychological habituation creates a type of deception. An individual’s risk tolerance increases after repeated exposures without negative consequences. Safety systems are essential tools to overcome this tolerance, such as regular maintenance; hazard communication involving messaging and team briefings: and robust, proactive and comprehensive hazard identification and assessment. All are components of a mature, rigorous safety culture. Strong safety cultures recognize the reality of hazard creep and take action to prevent it.
Derive Deeper Meaning From Observations
Visual Literacy training does more than allow us to see better, to see incremental hazard creep better. Visual Literacy is an enabler. It enables our observations to be more descriptive, analytical and interpretative. Consciously and with purpose we deconstruct work environments without biases or relying on past memories to create more accurate observations, hazard descriptions and hazard inventories. Mitigating or controlling hazards is based on the severity and frequency of exposure to potential risks. Visual Literacy enables us to derive meaning from observations. What do you see? What does it mean? What are you going to do about it? Risk management analysis can reveal and prevent hazard creep.
The Center of Visual Expertise (COVE) provides Visual Literacy workshops based on art education and modified for workplace safety hazard recognition and risk management. You’ll learn structured methods to accurately see your environment, understand the risks, and take effective action. Your critical thinking skills will be honed, and you will learn to recognize any biases that could lead to blind spots in hazard identification.
Transform your hazard identification practices; uncover and mitigate hazard creep; and develop new competencies by participating in one of COVE’s upcoming in-person and virtual training workshops.
