Emerging from the industrial model of “managers think, workers act” was the concept that a safety program consisted of rules employees were expected to follow. This model never worked particularly well. It often devolved into a game where the employees, viewing safety requirements as getting in the way of getting the job done, would see what they could get away with. The iconic example of this is a member of a crew sees a supervisor coming, so everyone puts on their safety glasses.
That reaction is understandable when you consider that this model meant an ever-expanding set of (often poorly written) safety rules. Every time an incident happened, writing more safety rules seemed like the answer. Policing was also a burden on supervisors, so except for egregious violations, they would tend to turn a blind eye to unsafe acts.
When you consider that the minimum level of intelligence required just to be an electrician is rather high, this model is wasting the best safety resource available. The model used by NFPA 70E, by contrast, relies on that resource.
Notice a key element that is specifically and explicitly articulated: “Awareness and self-discipline” [110.5(D)]. Under the old model, awareness meant seeing the supervisor coming and the action taken was to do something to avoid being disciplined for a safety infraction. That is not to say everyone worked as dangerously as possible, only that the safety program model assumed they would and, thus, encouraged unsafe acts.
• “The electrical safety program shall be designed to provide an awareness of the potential electrical hazards to the employees who work in an environment with the presence of electrical hazards” [110.5(D)].
So now it is the employees, not the managers writing the mind-numbing safety rulebook, who must (by design) be aware of the hazards.
• “The program shall be developed to provide the required self-discipline …” [110.5(D)].
Now it is the employees who think about their own actions and have the discipline to work safely rather than relying on a supervisor to catch them if they work unsafely. Self-discipline is internal, and it works much better than some kind of external discipline. Rather than trying to see what they can get by with before being subjected to a disciplinary measure, employees are now charged with being their own safety boss.
• “… for all who must perform work that may involve electrical hazards” [110.5(D)].
This strongly implies that the safety program requires the employees to identify the hazards rather than rely on someone else to tell them what the hazards are.
• “The program shall instill safety principles and controls” [110.5(D)].
There’s no laundry list you can check to see if something you want to do is inadvertently left out, thus implying you have permission to do it. You evaluate the desired action against the safety principles. If it’s unsafe, you follow the relevant controls.
The real contest should never have been between company policy and employee creativity in circumventing it. The real contest is between workplace dangers and the employees who need to protect themselves from those dangers. That is a core principle behind NFPA 70E.
