Chapter 11Look, A Squirrel! Distraction and the Growing Safety Crisis
It is better to be careful 100 times than to get killed once.
—Mark Twain
Every day in America, 13 people go to work and never go home. Every year, 3.3 million suffer a workplace injury from which they may never recover.1
Safety isn't just a major issue at companies in manufacturing, construction, utilities, and oil & gas. Injury rates are up in every major sector. Even white‐collar companies are having a significant increase in on‐the‐job injuries. So what's causing it?
We already know that the average person spends about half of their time with the mind wandering. Researchers estimate that 90% of all workplace accidents are due to human error.2 Connecting the dots here isn't hard. When people don't pay attention, bad things can happen. And the stats are getting worse in just about every industry. It's become a crisis and ignoring it won't make it go away.
I've had the pleasure of speaking on the topic of safety at conferences around the world, including Mainstream, Best Practices for Oil & Gas, and SAP for Utilities. SAP for Utilities brings together the world's leaders in maintenance, reliability, and safety in industries like oil, gas, and power. I joined my good friend, Rudy Wolf, on stage for the utilities event to address 1,500 executives. Rudy heads the ...
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