| Driver Safety Program or Vehicle Safety Program….What’s The Difference? |
3/16/07 |
Last week we discussed the topic of priority versus value, and I hope it got you thinking about the importance of identifying and positioning your program to your employees. This week my challenge to you is to once again look at your program and assess your approach.
Do you have a Driver Safety program or a Vehicle Safety program?
If you are asking yourself, “what’s the difference?” or “is there really a difference?” the answer is – yes, there is a difference between the two.
A vehicle safety program is about protecting the vehicle asset and a driver safety program is about protecting the human asset. Can you have the best of both worlds? Of course you can, and you should. As a matter of fact the companies that strike the right balance between protecting the driver and protecting the vehicle have an easier time moving their programs forward, gaining employee buy-in and maximizing their results.
Look at some of the events below. Categorize them as driver safety, vehicle safety, or both.
Employee’s vehicle is stolen while unoccupied
Employee’s vehicle is carjacked
Employee’s vehicle rear-ends another vehicle
Employee’s vehicle is vandalized
Employee does not maintain their vehicle properly
Employee slips and falls while walking from vehicle to customer location
Employee injures their back while removing samples from the trunk
Now that you have categorized them, take a look at that list again. What would be your remedial action strategy? How would you communicate with the employee and others to ensure these types of events do not happen again? Do you need a driver safety intervention or a vehicle safety intervention? Maybe you don’t need either?
Pay particular attention to the last two bullets above. Hopefully you can see there is another important difference here as well.
Not all injuries that happen to employees that drive are driving related. The last two events have nothing to do with driver safety. They have to do with employee safety. If you want to build a culture of safety in your field operations, you must consider all hazards that an employee may encounter and take a broad scope approach.
Vehicle Safety
Driving Safety
Occupational Safety
If you look at it from a bottom line perspective, does it really matter at the end of the day why that territory is now empty? Whether it was a slip and a fall, repairing a vandalized vehicle, or recovering from an injury sustained from a vehicle accident; the end result is that the territory is now empty for a period of time. The company loses and the employee loses.
Your goal should not be a Driver Safety program. Your goal should not be a Vehicle Safety Program. Your goal should be the creation of a Field Operations Safety Program. Identifying all potential hazards and then designing programs and approaches to reduce those hazards.
I am pretty certain your headquarters location does not refer to their safety program as a Computer User Safety Program. There is much more to the approach than that.
Start looking at your field operations the same way – Broad Scope, Big Picture.
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