Marc Axelrod was a front line industrial hygienist at one of the region's largest aerospace companies when he made a very surprising observation - the company safety metric seemed to "allow" accidents and appeared to be a barrier to safety culture improvement.  He thought this one PowerPoint presentation could change the safety culture of one of America's biggest businesses. He also sought to improve his company's safety culture with an inspired collection of safety posters for which his team was awarded the Global Achievement Award for Safety Culture Communication.  Sharing for the first time...Work Shouldn't Hurt - Using Words and Images that Inform, Motivate and Inspire. 

The presentation will examine the use of intermediate goals in injury metrics and how they may be introducing unintended risk into our safety culture. The safety principle of risk homeostasis will be explained and precepts from Normal Accident Theory and High Reliability Organization will be utilized to inform the understanding of risk acceptance as a social construction. The author suggests that Leading Indicators, those metrics that describe an organization's continuous efforts and activities at reducing risk, may better serve to communicate and control the occurrence of accidents and related injury and loss.

Learning Objectives

Marc Axelrod is a workplace safety professional who has worked at some of Southern California's most storied organizations. He has developed and implemented programs to protect people from industry's most hazardous technologies. The Flame Bucket - Adventures in Workplace Safety is his first book.  

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