Behavioral Safety Observation

As ever been, management pundits do not speak politics openly, but they fully know the politics of power mechanism.  They know how the ‘power’ moves in an organization to build up the hierarchy at macro level and how to ‘guide’ the employees at micro level to be compliant to the hierarchy.  The title, Behavioral Safety Observation (BSO), is a title of a safety monthly newsletter distributed in one leading company.  Safety is no longer a mere issue of achieving zero loss and maximum productivity in a company. It has become a total cultural activity to develop an integrated, safety-health-hygiene conscious workforce.

The newsletter saying “behavioral safety is not a new idea, but recently safety experts have been marketing it in various forms and with new names.  BSO achieves self-managed behavior of personnel, when properly implemented”

Safety is a major concern in all corporate industries and it’s one of the prime criteria to promote/demote an employee in her career, based on how safety conscious the employee is. There are many external methods like, fire extinguisher, alarm system, signs, posters, training etc., to ensure the safe on-job environment.  Maintaining the safety is a continuous, expensive and vigilant responsibility of management until the employees themselves internalize the whole process of being safe.  This process of internalizing ‘safety’ is not an easy task.  A model of employee vigilant inside the premise of company and reckless the moment s/he goes out of it after the work is illusory.  An integrated employee with sophisticated safety, health and moral standards is the ideal component in the system of power hierarchy in an organization.

Self-managed behavior of the citizens is the ultimate aim of any government as well.  Punishment and prison are not ideal method of any government.  It punishes delinquents and disobedient communities as guidelines to others to become ‘good’ citizens.  Corporates do the same to the employees with promotion and demotion.  Both promote personal and family values, hygiene, and health and advise to expect the unexpected always.

Who can question these decent, secular, and peace-loving directions? Not many people will say that banning of smoking and mandatory wearing of helmet are not good in intention.  Power is slowly licking the every aspects of our ‘natural’ and ‘reckless’ behavior domesticating them to be docile in organization/ society and it’s not moving through the ‘traditional’ ways that we used to learn from Marxism and all, as the power is not always confronting us with animosity.

Still, when dangers fall on us with no prior notice and when we again turn to God, the foundations of power are being shaken from its foundation of ‘safe’ reasons. ‘Alhamdulillah’.