6 RISK COMMUNICATION WITH WORKERS
For workers, their most important understanding of EHS‐related expectations and necessary controls boils down to a simple concept; what do they need to make sure is in their toolbox as they go out and perform a hard day's labor? Teaching workers the basics of the RLBMS approach can be done in as little as five minutes. Using the traffic light concept is the most effective way to begin. Everyone understands red and green, and the yellow light discussion is a great talking point about the need to overcome objectivity in workplace decision making. Acknowledging that checking for the police at a yellow light is a direct comparison for workers looking for the presence of EHS staff when making decisions on whether or not to use controls. It is also an excellent conversation to begin the shift toward building a mutual trust. By splitting the yellow light into RL2 and RL3, and clearly communicating that crossing the line into RL3 requires EHS discipline involvement, this leaves the RL2 tasks as the golden category for workers to prioritize achieving. Workers will fully understand that certain tasks will require a more complete EHS staff review at RL4. In fact, once this RLBMS approach to risk communication is taught, workers often become the best information source for where these highest risk tasks occur and may even have thought about what might be the right controls necessary to reduce these work‐related risks. Once this risk communication language is understood by workers, when the EHS staff identify a given task as RL1–RL4, the workers then will also comprehend what they need to put in their toolbox on any given day.
RL2 tasks have the potential for problematic work‐related exposure to risk. Therefore, it is understood by workers that a set of established controls that often require EHS staff involvement for establishing appropriate confirmation of the reduction of risk will require the necessary discipline and employee teamwork that is so beneficial for improving workplace safety culture. At times, such as potential chemical exposure monitoring that has not yet taken place, an IH may require a task to be deemed RL3 and the use of respiratory protection must be in place until this monitoring confirms the effectiveness of controls so it can be classified as an RL2 task. This process also cultivates worker and EHS staff communication and the potential to build trust toward achieving the golden RL2 task designation. Discussions with EHS staff and a given working group, industry sector, or manufacturing operation are an essential component of this risk communication process. EHS professionals should not be surprised when workers understand this system so well that they begin building a solid case, using discipline‐appropriate language, for why a given task should be RL2 and not RL3. Discussions like these assist all stakeholders in breaking down work areas into tasks that are to be evaluated for where in the RLBMS spectrum of the RL1 to RL4 bands do the EHS disciplines place each of these tasks. As a result, employees, their managers, and EHS staff have a clear layout for prioritization of upcoming work with the RL4 and RL3 tasks becoming the most important areas for focusing resources. It has been found in practice that approximately 75% of standardized tasks fall into the RL1 and RL2 categories (32). A documentation of these controls for each task begins the process of affording the workers the trust that is necessary for achieving a clear, practical, and mutual risk communication that can create a proactive approach to primary prevention and provide a path toward a safe and healthy work environment.
6.1 Participatory EHS and Risk Communication
Successful EHS performance is often based on lagging indicators like frequency rates and lost time work‐related injury and illness. Often ignored are the attitudes and perceptions of workers in this process, an essential component of a healthy and safe work climate. Participation at work is a general technique of giving employees an opportunity to control the design of their workplace and plan their work activities. Participatory EHS is an expansion of this strategy, integrating workers into the thought processes of the field practitioners and harnessing their input toward the development of an EHS program. With a common language for discussing workplace hazards and controls in hand, this multidisciplinary process provides a mutual communication of risk and identification of solutions that can also become a powerful management tool (45). Worker attitudes toward accident and incident prevention in relation to management commitment and level of involvement are important for promoting safe workplaces. Appropriate risk perception was found to be significantly correlated to risk behavior and is related to the occurrence of accidents and near misses (46). Therefore, an employee's safe work attitude can be positively influenced when they consider themselves an integral part of a safety culture approach. This attitude is enhanced with a participatory EHS program, itself becoming a measurable performance indicator of a successful safe and healthy workplace (47).
Though worker participation in reducing workplace hazards is often called for in research, underlying ideologies of management control and worker empowerment need to be fully understood to ensure a long‐lasting participation in practice over time (14, 48). Participatory approaches focusing on worker input to achieve good practices and acceptable controls have an excellent track record of successful implementation over time and for establishing improvements in technical areas including materials handling, risk assessment, and comprehensive work organization (49, 50). Once participatory methods for developing risk assessments are in practice, ongoing facilitation with training tools, checklists, and group involvement assists in maintaining and evaluating these applications positively (50).
The RLBMS is, therefore, the nexus of the participatory approach toward workplace risk management and risk communication, where EHS discipline expertise and collective worker input meet. Building an effective corporation requires this comprehensive feedback approach as it tears down existing preconceptions, rules, and institutional customs in order to build a more effective and functional EORM system (51, 52). EHS field practitioners have an innate understanding of the workforce that is necessary to identify existing practices and organizational structures to determine the correct organizational direction. EHS disciplines are also in an appropriate position to promote a positive course for management to enhance their organization. Conversely, with a lack of productivity and profitability identified in an existing EORM system, EHS disciplines must also identify these weaknesses to ensure the negative organizational direction does not persist. Participatory methods in the collective redefining and rebuilding of an EHS organizational structure has been shown to achieve the risk communication necessary to receive the buy‐in of managers and workers alike, as this approach assists in achieving a collective vision of the ideals, objectives, and goals of a successful, organizationally‐specific, EORM.
6.2 Turning Risk Knowledge into Action
The premise of participatory EHS is that workers know their workplace better than anyone else. With a mutual sharing of information by workers and their EHS staff, an elevated knowledge of workplace risk is created that allows them to develop a more comprehensive approach to their daily tasks. The amount of control that workers are given over their workplace is an important element, as well as a potential limitation, for the effectiveness of the participatory process. By definition, managers have a level of control over their workplace that is not available to the workers. Without an appropriate incentive, management is not usually willing to truly empower workers to determine their own solutions. In addition, a situation in which workers do not have a climate of trust between themselves and upper management can, in and of itself, add to their workplace risk factors (11, 53).
This problem exists as much in developed nations as in economically developing countries. Unfortunately, lack of worker empowerment is not consistent with the fact that workers are usually the ones who know their job and their peers well enough to identify and create solutions that will persist (54). However, management can be in a position to give a certain level of control to the workers when their production costs increase due to workplace incidents, accidents, and regulatory fines. These increased costs can often be related to decreased working efficiency, employee turnover rates, absenteeism, medical care, and worker's compensation . Participatory EHS and the RLBMS strategy present a synergistic opportunity for the process to be implemented in a manner that significantly increases workplace risk knowledge and offers an opportunity to improve working efficiency and employee satisfaction