(Repost) Illegal acts should be held accountable and also studied

Thread Content

bg9.png The principle that \"rules must be followed and violations must be punished\" has been emphasized for decades; it’s something that’s often repeated. However, the severe situation regarding work safety tells us that what is often repeated isn’t necessarily taken as a given, and slogans shouted every day cannot translate into actual effectiveness in safety management. Irregular behaviors in management and operation occur frequently, and violations of regulations are common;* such habitual violations have not been curbed. What is the reason for this? Why do people’s* habitual unsafe behaviors persist despite repeated bans? Why, despite investing so much manpower and resources in security management and taking numerous measures, have we still not developed a strong capacity for implementation? This is especially severe in new economic organizations. I believe the problem lies in the lack of a culture of execution in terms of safety management, the absence of proper procedures for implementation, insufficient training, and a lack of systematic organizational evaluation and research. As a result, in some companies, certain positions have no clear guidelines to follow or even no guidelines at all; moreover, such companies neither address nor investigate violations of rules, with the principle of \"following rules strictly and holding violators accountable\" remaining merely a slogan. 　　The prerequisite for having rules to follow is that such rules actually exist. At present, in a considerable number of enterprises, the main issue is not violations of operating procedures, but rather the fact that operators have no rules to follow. Some of them carry out their tasks based on their own understanding or habits, while others follow their supervisors’ personal experience. There is much validity in these approaches, but they also have significant limitations. Especially with the development of science and technology and the introduction of advanced manufacturing techniques, our existing experience is far from sufficient, posing serious safety risks. This kind of behavior, in which one relies on the experience and skills passed down by senior practitioners and acts arbitrarily based on personal understanding, means that the operator also feels that their methods of operation are not standardized; however, they do not know what the standard procedures should be. Some operators simply have no idea whether their methods of operation are safe or violate any regulations. There are also some corporate rules and safety procedures that provide no guidance at all for actual operations ； Such rules, regulations, and safety procedures exist in name only; in reality, they are utterly ineffective and not practical at all – in fact, they are even worse than having none at all ； With such rules, regulations, and procedures, operators are unable to follow them, and of course there can be no talk of \"adhering to the rules.\" 　　 The prerequisite for having rules to follow is to ensure that education, training, and assessment are provided to all operational staff in each position. Developing practical operating procedures and safety regulations is not merely a formality, nor is it done simply to meet the inspection requirements of relevant authorities. How can written systems and procedures be transformed into the conscious actions of every employee? The most basic approach is education and training, and one of the most effective methods is assessment before taking up a position. To this end, it is a prerequisite to follow established procedures by providing safety management systems and safety regulations training for each employee before they start working, offering ongoing safety education and training after they begin employment, and conducting regular training assessments for employees in special roles. The prerequisite for holding violations accountable is detecting them. Who detects the violations? Is it relying on a few safety managers to carry out inspections? Should it be self-inspection and mutual inspection by all employees, along with layered inspections by managers at various levels? For a long time, the conventional practice has been to assign safety officers to conduct regular inspections; this is an essential method, but it is not the only one, nor is it a solution that addresses the root of the problem. This approach is based on the idea of \"others ensuring my safety\", rather than \"I myself ensuring my safety\", which is why accidents often occur right after the inspectors leave. How to shift from “I need to be safe” to “I want to be safe”? Reforms must be made in management methods; it should not primarily rely on safety officers to detect violations, but rather on each employee, driven by a sense of self-protection, to identify violations and potential hazards on their own. 　 　Holding violators accountable means imposing responsibility on those who break the rules. It is also a way to maintain the seriousness and authority of regulations and various safety protocols. Failing to hold violators accountable indicates that management has not taken effective corrective actions to ensure that these regulations and safety protocols are properly followed; as a result, operators assume that such rule-breaking behavior is tolerated by management, and even think that the existing management systems and safety protocols have been altered. For this reason, they continue to engage in risky production activities regardless of the dangers, rendering the so-called management systems and safety protocols meaningless. Therefore, violations must be held accountable in order to ensure that orders are obeyed and prohibitions are respected; those who fail to comply with orders or adhere to prohibitions must be dealt with strictly. This is out of concern for their lives, a responsibility toward the happiness of their families, and a responsibility for the property of ** and the company. 　　To hold those who violate rules accountable means to investigate the reasons for such violations. The concept of holding violators accountable is often understood as imposing severe punishments and strict penalties, sometimes even leading to increasingly harsher sanctions. The principle of holding violators accountable is not aimed solely at imposing penalties; it should not be limited to handling such violations and imposing punishments. What’s more important is to examine the subjective and objective reasons behind these violations, to find ways to make such violations impossible by removing their underlying conditions, and to ensure that employees develop a conscious commitment to adhering to rules and regulations. 　　Punishing violations strictly means that, while imposing severe penalties on such violations, it is also necessary to identify their root causes in order to correct them at the source. The biggest problem at the production sites is *inherent violations of regulations. To address these violations, we have continuously increased the severity of penalties, yet there has been no fundamental change in this phenomenon. Why? Some violations are not intentional on the part of the operator, but rather result from flaws in regulations or procedures, inherent safety issues with the equipment, or inadequate environmental conditions……Therefore, in-depth investigations and studies are needed to address such violations, especially those that stem from inertia; it is necessary to identify the root causes and take corrective actions at the source. How to improve the quality of education and training in order to correct people’s unsafe behaviors, how to enhance the intrinsic safety of equipment to change unsafe conditions of objects, how to use methods such as 5S to improve unsafe conditions in the work environment, and how to reform and innovate management practices to address the shortcomings in safety management… These are all topics that we need to study regarding *inherent violations.