Safety ethics

Black and white? Or shades of gray?

The practice of safety often has an ethical component. Often, the most ethical route is obvious, such as the choice between a legal option and an illegal one. Other times, multiple considerations may cloud a decision.

As Chris Marlowe, health and safety manager at Cambridge, MA-based CDM Smith, said, “We’re trying to optimize several parameters at the same time, and one of the parameters is, ‘Does the work get done and do we all stay employed?’”

CDM Smith specializes in environmental engineering, construction and consulting. Marlowe’s responsibility includes water systems, so his major considerations are keeping employees safe and ensuring high-quality drinking water for the public. He said the ethics he follows on the job are similar to the ethics he learned for life in general: “Don’t do any harm, be honest in your dealings, do a good job.”

His values line up with codes of conduct from various safety groups, which emphasize protecting people, property and the environment, along with displaying honesty and fairness. Most safety professionals probably follow similar ethical guidelines; the challenge comes in applying them when facing situational constraints and organizational priorities.

Do the right thing

Marlowe said he usually can determine the safest behavior, but rejected the notion that safety issues are black and white – there may be several choices to weigh, some more safe or realistic than others. For example, he faced a situation in which a client objected to the type of winch being used for confined space entry because the tool was designed for emergency rescue. Workers had to stop and buy another winch, causing a lost day of work. Marlowe said although the client technically was right, the two winches basically were the same and safety was not improved by using the second tool.

“If the shortcoming has no potential to hurt anybody, have I gotten back to the white or am I just light enough gray?” Marlowe asked. “Maybe safety does have some shade.”

Jan Wachter, associate professor in the Department of Safety Sciences at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, disagreed with the assertion that safety decisions come in shades of gray.

“Personally, I think it’s more black and white than we are led to believe – even among the [safety] professionals,” he said. “I think we have grayed our profession in order to accommodate the variances that we see management react to [regarding] what our needs are. Instead of standing up for what we believe to be the ethical choice of action, I think safety professionals have a propensity, in order to survive in the organization, for compromise.”

Wachter doubts that most companies really mean it when they say employees are their most important asset – when safety considerations come up against productivity and quality concerns, the latter two usually win out, he said.

He advocates moving beyond traditional approaches to safety, which are driven by regulation, loss prevention/control or risk reduction, and instead following ethics-based safety management. This approach incorporates ethical decision points into the work process, providing multiple opportunities to stop and consider the most ethical course of action. “You sort of hard-wire ethics into everyday operations,” Wachter said.

Organizations have achieved this, he said, when senior management accepts “because it is the right thing to do” as the justification for actions concerning safety and health.

“You don’t have to defend it on a cost-benefit analysis; you don’t have to base it on compliance with regulations; you don’t have to necessarily state that you’re going to reduce risk. The ultimate determinant is because it is the right thing to do,” Wachter said.

The tricky part is how to get there. Wachter believes the process begins with safety culture and management truly valuing employees.

Ethical climate

Safety professionals do not make decisions in a vacuum. “Your personal safety ethics are something that you have formed over your life and bring with you. However, I do believe that the organizational ethical climate can have an influence on your personal safety ethic,” said E. Andrew Kapp, associate professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Ethical climate refers to the organization’s shared perceptions about what behaviors are considered right or wrong. In Kapp’s view, the question is not whether a company is ethical or not, but what is its ethical foundation – what drives behavior? Companies may value safety but for different reasons based on their ethical climate.

In a study published in the Journal of Business Ethics (Vol. 80, No. 3), Kapp and researcher K. Praveen Parboteeah examined the connection between ethical climates and safety behaviors at five manufacturing plants.

Their research drew on the concept of ethical climates developed by Bart Victor and John Cullen, experts in management and organizational behavior. The three climate types are as follows:

  • Utilitarian (also called benevolent) revolves around the most good for the most people.
  • Principled supports following fundamental universal truths (i.e., obeying the law or doing the right thing).
  • Egoist promotes self-interest.

Fitting with Kapp and Parboteeah’s hypothesis, the utilitarian climate was associated with fewer injuries, and workers in principled climates showed more motivation to comply with rules. However, the utilitarian climate was not associated with a stronger motivation to improve safety, and the egoist climate was neither positive nor negative in terms of injuries and safety motivation.

As a result, Kapp said he believes a universally “ideal” climate does not exist, and cautioned against trying to change an ethical climate.

“It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s like trying to turn around a supertanker,” he said. “To change that climate just to get better safety results, you might end up losing the benefits to another area like production or sales.”

Instead, Kapp advised safety professionals to determine the ethical climate at their organization and connect to it. For example, in an egoist climate, let workers know that following the rules is in their best interest because being injured would reduce their quality of life. If the climate is utilitarian, communicate that helping to maintain a safe and healthy workplace will benefit fellow employees. In a principled climate, reiterate that safety is a key tenet driving the organization, he said.

At the same time, Kapp stressed that personal ethics play a critical role in safety performance. His research, published in the journal Safety Science (Vol. 50, No. 4), found that even in an environment where safety was not necessarily a top priority for management, a first-line supervisor with a personal commitment to safety could make a positive difference. Conversely, a first-line supervisor who does not value safety could diminish any positive influence coming from the top.

Change agent

Workers are most productive and comfortable when their personal ethics and organizational ethics line up, according to Kapp.

“As a member of management, you do owe allegiance to the company,” he said. “However, you do have your personal safety ethics, your professional safety ethics, and when those two come into conflict, that’s a very uncomfortable position to be in.”

Marlowe faced that type of situation in a previous position when he had a manager who disagreed with his emphasis on office ergonomics. Marlowe made it clear to the manager that ergonomics was a pressing concern, but followed orders to focus elsewhere.

“In that circumstance, my organization was wrong but I was not, in my opinion,” Marlowe said. He clarified that he would have been wrong if someone asked if the company had a great safety program and he said “yes.”

To safety professionals who would say he should have quit, Marlowe argued that staying does not mean he condoned wrongdoing. “You’re not a high priest of safety; you’re a technologist,” he said. “Your job is not to bless everything the organization does, although some people will ask you to do so.”

More broadly speaking, Marlowe suggested safety professionals need to take on the role of change agents, which sometimes means working in places that lack a strong commitment to safety.

“If safety people are only going to work for organizations that are already hyper-interested in safety, then the bulk of the population in the nation and the world are not going to get any safety services,” Marlowe said. “Our job is to work in places that need change, not in places that don’t.”

‘It’s not an easy road’

Standing up for personal ethics against management can exact a heavy toll, from isolation to job loss. Larry Mazzuckelli knows this well. He said he avoids “situational ethics,” instead sticking to the values he was raised with even when under pressure to change his position.

“To me, a situation is either right or it’s wrong. I don’t look for the gray areas,” he said.

Mazzuckelli, who retired from NIOSH and is now a senior advisor with Chaff and Co., a corporate communications agency in Chattanooga, TN, described the personal ramifications of choosing what he viewed as the ethical high ground. “You become ‘There’s Larry over there, you know how he is,’” he said. “You got to suck it up if you’re going to pick that road. It’s not an easy road.”

Like Marlowe, Mazzuckelli contends that safety professionals do not have to sacrifice their jobs because they disagree with an employer, but they have a moral responsibility to make their objection known.

“In many cases, that’s the best you can do,” he said.

He noted that safety professionals are bound by the Occupational Safety and Health Act, as well as a personal obligation, to address an imminent hazard such as unstable scaffolding. That differs, in his opinion, from a potential unverified risk such as debating the danger of a chemical. In such a case, Mazzuckelli said he would not draw a line in the sand without evidence.

For Wachter, the safety professional’s ethical duty is similar to that of the medical profession. “First of all, you ‘do no harm’ to the employees,” he said, “and then given what is available to you, you do your best in order to provide a safe and healthy work environment for your employees.”

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Ramabhadran
September 8, 2014
Yes definitely the responsibility of a safety professional is more than a medical profession, safety will be protecting very big disaster some time.

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Monica Chalman
October 2, 2016
Okay, so I just resigned my safety position, because I will not tolerate a total disregard for regulatory compliance, lack of hauling equipment on trucks permitted by the DOT for the load on them, as well as a 3 year out of date HAZCOM program, including unlabeled, and improper storage of chemicals, and several blatant ethical violations with regard to Federal, state, and Local regulations and or permitting requirements (because the fine is less than the permit). Some of us take safety very seriously, and cannot turn a blind eye, or allow diversion of our mission, to others disregard for their employees, and/ or the safety of the general public, or infrastructure damage that could occur due to hauling illegal weight loads for example. We should as safety professionals not encourage gray areas to enter our thought processes, it's right or wrong period. Having the patience to work with corporate resistance and finding methods for creating change are fine, but when the company just doesn't get it, I say, do what I did, and suggest they utilize free consultation from OSHA, so that they will comprehend their non-compliance issues, and avoid penalties yet actually have to become compliant. Truly caring whether the persons you are tasked with preventing from injury, illness, or death, is not an easy road but the correct ethical choice. People, Property and the Environment involves being aware of all the things safety affects when it isn't followed. Just a thought from an extremely ethical and responsible yet unemployed safety professional.

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Don Friday
October 19, 2019
I agree with this post. As a safety rep you have to stand up for what is right but also not allow staff and management to muddy the waters.

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Richard Peebles
March 17, 2020
Loved the article, but the context is subjective. You won't know what you do until placed in a position to make a decision when is it appropriate to be in the gray area. Its always a dangerous decision when it comes to someones life if the job is a dangerous one. Murphy's Law is always in practice when it comes to safety, you can be as safe as you want but if the right paramaters are there no matter ho many ropes a person is tied off to if the rope fails then there will be a consequence

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Bollen Balizi Kachaka
August 1, 2020
Most interesting article. Keep up good work.

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Fred Olugbenga Adewole
January 14, 2023
After reading the "Safety Ethics Black and White? or shades of gray" article I would chose to work in the Principled ethical climate. I would prefer to follow the law and always refer to the OHS regulations . All staff should be aware of the importance of safety in the work place and there will be zero tolerance in doing something for example, short cuts that would jeopardize the health and safety of themselves and co -workers. The first activity I would prioritize would be to ensure all current staff and new employees are properly trained and certified in First aid, PPE etc. and these are kept up to date. The second activity I would prioritize would be to let it be known to all staff that I have an open door policy. If staff have questions , doubts, struggling with mental health etc. they can come speak to me.

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wes carter
February 7, 2023
I felt that this was a very interesting read and I strongly agree that there should be no gray areas when it comes to safety. It either is or it isnt and i strongly agree that it should never be compromised. We should stand up for the rules and what we believe in no matter whose toes it may step on to do so.

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Brandon Bentley
April 11, 2023
Most of the time companies don't want you to chew through your bridle so to speak but safety far outweighs trying to cut costs for some organizations. Anything that protects people from loss of life and limb is going to save everybody in the long run anyway. Why not do it with a safety mind-set to begin with?

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Alicia Carreon
June 8, 2023
Understanding safety ethics will give you a clear idea of your limitations and help you address them.

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Lameck Talemwa
February 17, 2024
Well, according to my opinion, personal ethics in HSE shouldn't be also ignored, we vividly understand that professional ethics is more respectable, but this depends on the situation, time, environment, and the type of emergency. Given an example, a military man will not wait for an ambulance or medical teams to show up on the battle ground to fix his broken borne, instead he can apply an a torniquet and move on. Now that will be personal ethics for the rescue prior to professional ethics. Thank you.

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FRANCK DESIRE KOUDOU
March 23, 2024
GOOD

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Lameck Talemwa
May 16, 2024
I will also give an example of speed limits in an organization and time to save life and speed must not be looked at. If you follow the company policy the patient to be taken to a hospital may loose their lives. Sometimes we change what the policy says to save lives. Thank you.

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Aubrey Botha
September 10, 2024
Safety+Health is GOD calling job, it has so many challenges like disagreements with the employer. In order to safegaurd your job, just follow the leader and his instructions.