They’ve Been Trained, So Why Do They Still Not Do (fill in the blank)?

Have you ever seen an employee continue to do some “unsafe act” or not use the safety equipment provided to them just after they’ve been trained in the new policies and procedures?  If you have you’re certainly not alone.  Unfortunately, this is a common frustration of safety professionals everywhere.  I’ve personally experienced this on more than one occasion, especially early on in my career.  I’ve also had colleagues ask me if this has happened to me and what I’ve done about it.

The first thing I would like to acknowledge is that getting every employee on board and following new (or maybe old as in a “refresher” class) procedures and/or equipment that we say will make their jobs easier and safer can be difficult and challenging if we don’t understand the human factors and behaviors.  We need to understand the “whys” of why people don’t do what they’ve been taught.

As a safety professional, a classic example would be teaching employees on how to lift safety.   It’s probably fairly safe to say that almost every safety related professional has done classes on body mechanics and “safe lifting”.  We teach employees to lift with their legs, has a wide base, keep the back straight, head up, keep the load close, move feet—don’t twist, etc.  Did the employees follow through and lift that way?  Probably not, unless a person has had a previous back injury or surgery and now uses good body mechanics religiously.  Why?  They’ve been taught, told, instructed, and reminded a million times.  It’s certainly not that they don’t know and they’re probably not doing it because they want to purposely violate policy and procedures.  So the question remains, “Why?”

In my next series of blogs I’ll be exploring with you the common reasons why employees don’t do what they’ve been told to do despite having been trained and re-trained.  We’ll approach solutions to these common reasons through the use of human factors and ergonomics.

What are your top reasons for why employees not to do what they’ve been told to do?