When we talk about violations, what are we talking about?

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We know that human unsafe behaviors, unsafe conditions of equipment, as well as deficiencies in management and environmental factors are the main causes of safety accidents. Among these various factors, human factors play a dominant role, with statistics indicating that this proportion is 70%-80%. From this, it can be seen the harm that violations cause to safe production; they can even be considered the root cause of safety accidents. Unsafe human behavior constitutes violations of regulations and represents potential risk factors. Yes, we have various regulations: **laws and regulations, standards ； Various management systems, operating procedures, and work instructions established by the enterprise itself. So, why do people break the rules? How much do we know about these regulations, and what value do they hold in themselves? We need to figure out a few things. How much do you know about EHS regulations? ——When we talk about violations, what are we talking about? We in EHS have seen and heard too many safety accidents, and we have conducted numerous investigations into such accidents as well as analyzed their causes. Take the case of an employee accidentally cutting their finger while working as an example; don’t you find the accident cause analysis below quite familiar? If it were us in the EHS department, how would we conduct an accident cause analysis? Yes, we can indeed identify a series of causes, and analyze them in a thorough manner. But if our conclusion is that employees are working in violation of regulations by using substandard tools. The employees will look at you strangely: Where are the good, qualified tools? Without proper tools, should the work still be done? If the production task isn’t completed, will it be my salary that gets deducted or yours? In the end, it was left unresolved. If our conclusion is that employees lack a strong safety awareness and do not pay attention to safety. What would happen then? Employees still use poor-quality tools to meet deadlines, and their safety awareness remains low; such situations tend to occur frequently. If, after conducting the above analysis, we conclude that the tools are not user-friendly, break down frequently, and require tight working schedules under which employees must operate with extreme care, then neither efficiency nor safety can be ensured. So, our focus shifted to: improving the tools! A deeper analysis will show us that the failure to respond to and address issues in a timely manner seems to be a sort of \"culture\"; so what should we, as the company’s EHS managers, do? There are various methods available; the key is whether you want to do it that way! If we simply attribute the cause of accidents to employee errors, violations of regulations, or a lack of safety awareness among employees, and then settle matters by punishing those responsible, similar accidents will continue to occur. This will push employees into a cycle of giving up, and it does nothing to resolve the issue of violations. We can’t help but wonder: are employees really not afraid of death? Are you really willing to risk your life by breaking the rules? Topic 1: Do employees really not care about their own safety? Let’s start with a small test: “In front of you, there are 330 dumplings that all look exactly the same.” One of them is highly poisonous; eating it can be fatal. Another 29 cases were caused by unhygienic production methods, which led to stomach pain upon consumption. The remaining 300 are all clean; there will be no problems if consumed. ”Here’s the question: Are you eating these dumplings by yourself? Under what circumstances will it be eaten? ——No, unless I’m about to starve to death. Would you give these dumplings to the people around you? ——I won’t let those around me eat it. If you saw someone eating these dumplings, would you stop them? ——It will definitely be firmly prevented. A normal person would not risk their life, nor that of others. When seeing illegal or risky work practices, consider more deeply what the underlying reasons are What makes workers willing to risk their lives by breaking rules? Perhaps it’s due to requirements regarding output and efficiency – production tasks must be completed; otherwise, wages and bonuses will be deducted! Perhaps it’s due to the deadline: the boss is coming to cut the ribbon that day, and the project must be completed; there’s no way it can be delayed! Perhaps it was due to a task assigned on short notice by the supervisor, who insisted that it had to be completed at all costs – focusing only on the outcome while ignoring the difficulties involved in carrying it out! Perhaps the equipment, materials, tools, etc. have defects and do not meet the requirements, but this issue has been reported 800 times yet no one pays any attention – with the task at hand, there’s no choice but to make do! Perhaps what we workers think about and talk about is only \"Secretary Dakang’s GDP\" (the actual work tasks), and we really don’t pay attention to these risks, nor to these safety precautions! Note: The appearance that we see of employees not taking safety seriously is just superficial. Behind this might be the pressure of work tasks, constant urging from bosses and supervisors, or perhaps helplessness after repeatedly raising issues. The employees knew that the grinding wheel they were using did not have a guard, but had no better alternative and had to continue working. This is due to a severe lack of investment in factory safety; it is the negligence of those of us working in EHS. We can’t be too demanding of our employees. Furthermore, they were too focused on the grinding work, and the employees really didn’t notice that the guard for the grinder was missing. Topic 2: Do employees know there are rules? Do employees not care about the rules? When we say that workers need to comply with regulations, there is a prerequisite: the company must have corresponding rules and regulations (procedures, operating guidelines, and work instructions, etc.). Let’s put aside for now the question of how these chapters came about. First of all, do the workers know that these EHS-related chapters exist? If there aren’t even these chapters, how can there be workers violating regulations! Another interesting aspect related to \"chapters\" is the company’s salary and personnel system. When factories recruit workers, what is most important to the workers? It’s the salary one receives, the number of days off per week, and various benefits. Few people think about whether the company owner attaches importance to safety, what the company’s safety culture is like, or what the conditions for safe production are. If they don’t think about it, they naturally won’t pay attention to it; and without attention, nothing further will happen. Workers are concerned about their wages and how many days off they can have per week, but have they really read the company’s policy documents on these matters? If one hasn’t even taken the time to carefully examine the company’s salary and leave policies, the situation regarding safety regulations is even more concerning. Furthermore, did the third-level training mention the safety operating procedures and work instructions for the positions held by the workers? Have the workers taken the assessment and passed it? It is also crucial to know where the factory’s EHS regulations are kept – can workers access them easily? Can the workers understand it? If these regulations just stay quietly in cabinets, in computers ； If these chapters are presented to workers in a way that is difficult for them to accept (entirely in text form, obscure and hard to understand), workers will not be able to read them or comprehend them. So are there such rules, and what are the differences? The workers either didn’t know such a clause existed or couldn’t understand it, so they simply gave up. The most direct consequence of this is that the workers have no idea they are breaking the rules. Note: When workers are unaware of these regulations or fail to comply with them, they artificially create hazards and increase risks, thereby leading to various incidents. Since rules and regulations, operating procedures, and work instructions are meant for workers to read and follow, they serve to protect them. Therefore, workers must be made aware that it exists, able to understand it, willing to look at it, and able to see it.