An unfortunately common view of safety is the employer sets rules to avoid OSHA fines, and employees see what they can get away with before their supervisor writes them up. This view assumes that safety is an edict that gets in the way of work, and as long as you can check the box or not get caught breaking a rule everyone is happy.

But the reality is that safety is what permits you to work. As long as you work in a safe manner — and your employer helps you do that through training and other means — everyone should be able to do their jobs and then go home in once piece.

This is why NFPA 70E says “Chapter 1 covers electrical safety-related work practices and procedures for employees who are exposed to an electrical hazard….” [105.1]. Notice “work practices” and “procedures”; both of these address how employees conduct their work.

The “OSHA citation” avoidance concept is flawed for an employer, and the supervisor write-up avoidance concept is flawed for the employee.

Consider these situations:

• The company avoids OSHA citations by conducting dog and pony show safety “training.” The box is checked, we’re good. The day after “training” on lockout/tagout, an electrician is fatally electrocuted because he failed to correctly test for voltage. If you were a company executive hearing the news, would avoidance of that citation really matter to you? Especially if you personally knew the worker who was killed?
• Jim does not like wearing his safety glasses. He has become an expert at seeing his supervisor coming, so he knows when to put them on and has never been written up for not wearing them. While on the job, Jim suffers an eye injury from a projectile. The eye can’t be saved. When Jim returns to work with his glass eye, do you think he’s going to be happy he was so “clever” about dodging his supervisor?

Consider these outcomes, when people are responsible:

• The company requires practical demonstrations of lockout/tagout, and has instituted a “buddy check” system whereby the person conducting the lockout/tagout must prove to the satisfaction of a qualified coworker that energy sources have been isolated. An executive runs into an electrician who tells him about this backed circuit the team found power. They were able to isolate it and then proceed safely. Would that executive be thinking, “We dodged a possible OSHA citation” or “I am so relieved nobody was hurt”?

• Jim does not like the idea of losing his eyesight. As soon as he is in the production area (or on the job site), those glasses are on. Jim sees his supervisor coming, and waves him over. Then he pulls out a pair of safety glasses that were damaged by a projectile. “I need these replaced,” he says. Safety glasses yes, glass eye no.