Complacency in Electrical Safety, an Interview with Mike Bahr

Jon Travis interviews Mike Bahr about workplace complacency, worker fatigue and the value of electrical safety education.

Mike Bahr — Castle Rock Safety Consultants

Jon Travis — Leaf Electrical Safety

Watch the full interview here — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1b50ppGrhc

 

Jon — Could you elaborate a bit on how complacency develops in the workplace and, what some of the warning signs that organizations can look for?

Mike — I keep track of things closely on incidents, especially on the utility side. And when we talked last time, I have mentioned that on the utility side, we average a serious injury or fatality about every 11 days. And there is a Facebook group (Linemen Take a Stand for Safety) that will track that. And every day that we do not have a SIF or an incident, it is one more day. And we got to 50 days, which is huge.

This doesn't mean we've solved anything. Now, how did we get to 50 days? I'm not really sure. Are we getting better? Is it luck? I think that there's so many factors that it's really hard to know, but one thing I do know is that we're going to have another fatality. You know, it's to happen. Or we're going to have another SIF. 

And I wanted to caution people that, you know, just because we have gone 50 days, doesn't really mean anything, you know, to me. We still got a lot of work to do. And I think in our industry, Jon, it is so easy to get complacent. 

We don't need any new regulations. There isn't a hazard out there in my mind that we don't have a regulation, a procedure, or a policy or, you know, a way to avoid that hazard. And if we follow them, everybody goes home at night. But we still have this stuff happening.

Jon — So when I think about complacency, versus being naive, let's say…Are these workers who know the hazards, they understand the hazards, they've taken the training or do not have training...for example, take ten utility workers randomly chosen...how many of those ten understand how to properly ground and create that EPZ zone. Is it safety knowledge is lacking? 

Mike — Here’s the puzzling thing about that to me. If I go out and I do a class with a group of linemen from apprentice up to journeyman and I ask these questions about, bracket grounding or, grounding between you and the source... It's just astounding to me how many still believe that, but every one of these guys, there is an alignment out there that hasn't been through grounding training, but they cannot get past this, the myth.

If it's not grounded, it's not dead. And we've got people thinking mechanically and not electrically. 

Even though I've got induced voltage on it, and we know that current will take every path. When something happens like this, Jon, this is where we get into what is considered an unknown to me. This is where people scratch their head and say, well, how did that happen? I've heard this term over and over again in my career and it really upsets me when I hear it. That was a freak accident. Well, there's no such thing as a freak accident, right? 

There's no secrets to electricity. We know what electricity will do.

Electricity doesn't give a damn about you. If you're a path between two different potentials. And that's the way it needs to be taught. Nobody believes that there's a potential that could harm you.

I have people all the time in my classes say, well, Mike, I've been bracket grounding for 40 years. There's never been an incident. So, it must work. Well, no, that doesn't tell me anything. All it tells me is that you've never been in the situation where the current is looking for a path through you.

You've never been in a situation where you opened that, where you took a jumper down and got between two potentials. You've never been in that situation when somebody energized the line. It doesn't mean you were protected. It just means you could have had the same outcome if you'd have never put up a ground at all. The outcome wouldn't have been any different. So that's where I believe that complacency comes in, because we do something and nobody ever gets hurt, and so we believe it's protecting us when it's not.

Jon — How much of a role does psychological or fatigue factor into complacency?

Mike — I think in our industry, Jon, it plays a big factor. These people work hard, especially travelers, you know, people that are going around the country, which are away from their families, who are away from their kids, week after week after week. Sometimes 13, 14 days straight on 12, 13, 14 hours a day, it's a factor and there's signs...these managers and supervisors need to be looking out for some of these signs:

1.    They're not asking questions anymore. 
2.    They're not seeking any kind of clarification or offering any kind of suggestions. 
3.    They're just going through the motions. 

If we don't have the right people leading, then people are going to become unproductive. And then of course that's just going to spread to that whole crew. You must have somebody in charge that truly is a leader and understands the consequences of getting off track, because the consequences are huge, and our industry is extremely unforgiving. 

Jon — the severity is always high. So, what about training? What, could some of these organizations do, add to their training to focus a bit more on battling complacency? 

Mike — I feel that as far as training people in safety regulations and procedure, I think the industry does a pretty good job with that. The one thing we are lacking is, who do we typically put in as a supervisor or a foreman?

You know, a lot of companies typically look for the people that gets work done, right? They know the work. They know how to build things. They know how to build it quick. But they may not necessarily know how to lead people or deal with personalities and problems. I am telling you, everybody on that crew has an issue of some sort. 

It is not just getting the work done, right? It is getting the work done safely. And it is a tough balance there. And we need to do a better job of educating. 
And if you are getting complacent and you don't give a damn about breaking that rule...then the rest of the crew is going to follow along and I'm telling you it catches up with people... I have seen this my whole career.