Who doesn’t like shortcuts?
With all the demands placed on us, the last thing we want to do is waste precious time. Taking shortcuts often seems like the most sensible thing to do. It’s also how we are programmed.
It’s been shown that each of us has two brain systems: one is fast-thinking and handles automated behavior, and the other is slower, more deliberate, and requires more energy. As Daniel Kahneman points out in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, a “law of least effort” applies to physical exertion. He says, “If there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will gravitate to the least demanding course of action. Laziness is built deep into our nature.”
Success Breeds Complacency
The more often that you successfully complete an action, the less you must think about it, the more automated it becomes –the more complacent you get. That’s why, for instance, it’s so hard for sports teams to win consecutive championships. As much as they try, the mindset just isn’t the same.
Losing a game isn’t dangerous, of course. It’s just frustrating. Taking shortcuts in facility services, on the other hand, can be dangerous. Cutting steps out of a process – like changing a light ballast without going back to the workshop or utility cart for safety glasses or using the wrong tool because the right one isn’t on hand – may get jobs done faster. However, shortcuts unnecessarily increase the risk of an injury to yourself or others around you.
For example, safety could be compromised when transporting materials from the loading dock to a tenant floor or the workshop. You typically use the loading dock dolly. Today, it is either being used or was misplaced by the previous user. You know the right (safe) thing to do is get another dolly, but today is not the day for wasting time. The former takes extra time and effort, so most people opt for the latter. But if that item being moved is heavy, you can injure yourself and/or someone else in the process. And if it blocks you from seeing a spill, the mess at the trash compactor, or you simply miss a step, an accident can occur.
Preventing Shortcuts
To enhance safety in an ideal world, you’d prevent potentially dangerous shortcuts altogether. Since eliminating shortcuts goes against human nature, a safety culture is difficult to achieve. Instead, your goal should be to prevent them from becoming the norm. Here are a few ways to achieve this result:
- Build shortcut prevention into safety training: Most companies provide safety training when new employees are hired. Make sure that the training includes information on why to avoid shortcuts. Conduct simple refresher courses on a regular basis.
- Instill a ‘doing-things-right’ culture: Make sure your facility services supervisors and managers understand that doing things right is more important than doing them fast. Have staff remind people not to take shortcuts if they are seen doing so. Take the time to do the task right the first time, not the second. Great injury prevention programs empower employees to keep others safe, not just themselves.
- Communicate near misses: Everyone understands the need to immediately report injuries and accidents. However, near misses generally aren’t reported. To prevent today’s near miss from becoming tomorrow’s accident, encourage employees to report them. Communicate the near miss that resulted from a shortcut to the rest of your staff so they can avoid that behavior in the future.
- Use signage: Put up signs reminding staff about the correct process for tasks that are prone to shortcuts. To create greater visibility, design signs that are graphically bold and are specific to your workforce and facility.
Shortcuts aren’t always a bad thing. There are times when processes are unnecessarily convoluted and removing steps is the smart thing to do. But more often than not in facility services, shortcuts lead to unnecessary risk. Since avoiding them goes against human nature, we need to do everything we can to change the shortcut mindset and focus on doing things the right way.