2 ms·

I very vaguely remember a story, (though I can't remember which company, but since it's probably corporate propaganda that's fine anyway). The story goes that

by mbar84 7y ago

I very vaguely remember a story, (though I can't remember which company, but since it's probably corporate propaganda that's fine anyway). The story goes that you have a company with lots of industrial manufacturing facilities distributed across the country. In one of them there is an accident which leads to the death of workers. As soon as possible, the big boss at the main office orders the plant manager to fly over and when the manager enters the office, the boss asks "Why did you kill these men?" The manager is flusters and protests they did everything they could, was not to blame, etc. etc. I don't know if the manager was fired or demoted, but if he wasn't that sends a message through the organization that you can fk up or be negligent and still keep your job. Anyway, the point is that all of this is a top down corporate culture problem. If the highest level doesn't understand that they are responsible for this, and if they don't enforce a culture of responsibility all the way down the line, then you will get outcomes like at France Télécom or much worse a culture like at Union Carbide that lead to the Bhopal disaster. Looking at the Bhopal disaster I guess you could say it's also an external accountability problem. If there's not some external entity like a government to hold the company and executives liable, or an insurance company that makes them pay through the nose if they are negligent, then the quarterly earnings cycle will lead to increased risk for employees. Insurance premiums are perhaps a more practical way to set the right incentives, as they give much more immediate feedback than intermittent disasters. If executives can point to safety measures they have taken and the reduction in premiums that were enabled by that, then perhaps even the most narrow-mindedly short term profit seeking execs/board members/shareholders will do what is right for the safety of employees.

graeme 7y ago
Sounds like you're thinking of Paul O'Neill and Alcoa. He figured out that worker safety was a proxy for a whole bunch of other metrics at Alcoa. He had everyone focus intensely on safety. Worker accidents went down massively. As a byproduct, costs went down and productivity went up. Any serious incident has to be reported up, was investigated, and was treated very seriously. Note that while this likely generalizes to other places, it doesn't necessarily generalize to every place. I could conceive of some setups where safety and profits were opposed. But in Alcoa's case, O'Neill was able to use safety as a driver for other changes.

by mbar84 7y ago

graeme 7y ago

Sounds like you're thinking of Paul O'Neill and Alcoa. He figured out that worker safety was a proxy for a whole bunch of other metrics at Alcoa. He had everyone focus intensely on safety. Worker accidents went down massively. As a byproduct, costs went down and productivity went up. Any serious incident has to be reported up, was investigated, and was treated very seriously. Note that while this likely generalizes to other places, it doesn't necessarily generalize to every place. I could conceive of some setups where safety and profits were opposed. But in Alcoa's case, O'Neill was able to use safety as a driver for other changes.