The human cost behind the numbers
Every workplace fatality represents more than just a statistic; it signifies a life lost—a parent, a partner, a friend. As safety professionals and regulators, we maintain an acute awareness of the human cost behind workplace incidents. Every inspection, investigation, and regulation are rooted in the stories of those who never made it home.
Despite decades of advancements in occupational health and safety, thousands of workers still die each year due to job-related injuries and illnesses. In 2023 alone, the U.S. reported over 5,0001,2 fatal occupational injuries, while Canada reported 3813 workplace-related fatalities. Globally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that around 2.6 million work-related deaths occur annually4,5.
One tragic example is Jaquan Pugh, who was working at a paper manufacturing facility in the southeastern United States. During unscheduled maintenance on a paper machine, a rigging strap failed, resulting in a metal shackle striking him and causing a fatal injury. This tragedy reminds us of the human toll behind each of the events in the large fatality numbers6.
These figures demand more than just incremental change; they necessitate a fundamental shift in our collective understanding of safety and the way we regulate it.
What does a regulator really want?
It's a pertinent question, and one that often leads to misunderstanding. Some in the industry believe that regulators are merely out to meet quotas, issue orders, or shut down
operations. Are regulators merely the watchdogs of health and safety, tasked with catching violations?
This longstanding misconception suggests that regulators should aim to "catch" companies in the act of non-compliance. However, the primary objective of most health and safety regulators aligns with the very goals of industry and workers alike: ensuring that everyone returns home safely at the end of the day. Traditional regulatory conversations have often focused on compliance verification; however, compliance does not necessarily equate to safety. This traditional model can inadvertently foster a mentality fixed on hazard-hunting or mere compliance, rather than promoting a deeper understanding of how everyday work is done and what measures must be in place to allow it to proceed safely.
There is potential for regulators to engage differently with their stakeholders because a workplace might fulfill every regulatory requirement and still harbor significant risks for worker injuries and illnesses. Conversely, another workplace may fall short on certain regulatory technicalities yet foster a strong culture of safety and resilience, underscored by committed management and engaged workers. Perhaps what regulators genuinely seek is assurance of capacity. They want to confirm that workplace systems effectively manage the actual risks—those high-energy hazards that pose serious threats.
The shift: From violation hunting to capacity confirming
This evolving notion of Regulating Differently can be encapsulated as follows: a shift by regulators and stakeholders from a strict compliance focus to a broader emphasis on organizational capacity—ensuring success and, if performance falls short, enabling safe failure.
In traditional regulatory frameworks, there is an emphasis on compliance—leading both regulators and employers to engage in hazard hunting rather than capacity-building. However, we need to accept that hazards are an inevitable part of work, and we cannot eliminate every risk. Instead, the goal should be to intelligently and effectively manage risks while ensuring controls are in place to mitigate them. This calls for a collaborative model with the regulator rather than one grounded in command and control and this can only be accomplished if the regulator through to the front-line considers thinking about managing safety differently.
For example, when regulators focus on confirming capacity rather than hunting for compliance violations, they can help organizations develop robust systems capable of learning from both success and failure. This is the essence of Regulating Differently - transitioning from rule enforcement to fostering improvement while acknowledging the role of safety management systems. By shifting the paradigm, regulatory officials can
model and support organizations in creating safe workplaces by establishing regulatory frameworks that support learning, empower reporting transparency and shift from a blame culture to one of learning to enable them to fail safely.
While regulators will continue to identify hazards, their impact is heightened when they prioritize the evaluation of mature system capacity for effective work above mere compliance monitoring. The aim is to confirm that organizations are learning from successes and failures, leveraging the workforce's expertise, and fostering the ability to fail safely. This emphasizes the understanding that it is not a question of if hazards will occur, but when they will impact workers.
Here lies the pivotal shift: if organizations can demonstrate they have effective systems in place, are learning from failures, and can build robust risk management capacity, regulators can shift from enforcement to support and guidance. Regulators should not aspire to "catch" companies but rather to affirm their ability to maintain safety and health.
The role of SHMS in safer workplaces
A robust Safety and Health Management System (SHMS), can serve as the operating system for workplace safety, often integrated into broader operational frameworks, and can inform a regulator about the maturity of risk management at a place of work.
A mature SHMS is not just a binder collecting dust; it’s a dynamic framework that integrates safety into every aspect of work. A strong SHMS should pivot around three critical pillars:
1. Management Commitment: Leadership must consistently prioritize safety, promoting a culture that shifts from blame to one of learning.
2. Worker Involvement: Empowering workers ensures their voices are heard, fostering a deeper understanding of workplace risks.
3. Systematic Hazard Management: Hazards need to be identified, assessed, and controlled through structured processes that engage everyone, creating a dynamic and resilient system capable of managing and mitigating risks.
As these elements develop, the SHMS enhances organizational capacity—equipping workplaces to effectively manage risks, adapt to changes, and recover from failures. A mature SHMS not only increases compliance but also moves beyond it, providing real assurance that safety is prioritized. Importantly, it facilitates a proactive learning environment where both failures and successes are seen as opportunities for continuous improvement.
A mature SHMS encourages organizations to embrace a learning mindset. When something goes wrong, the priority is understanding the underlying factors, not assigning blame. Through this lens, we can ask critical questions to improve our safety systems and ensure systems are capable of achieving successful outcomes at work.
A shared vision for safer workplaces (and increased capacity)
The human and economic costs of workplace incidents are too high to accept the status quo. We need to move beyond compliance. We need to build capacity. We need to regulate differently. This is not just a regulatory challenge - it’s a shared responsibility. Employers, workers, safety professionals, and regulators all have a role to play. By working together, we can create workplaces where safety is not just a requirement, but a value. Where systems are not just compliant, but capable. When we build capacity, we mitigate risks in the work that people do each and every day so that the incident that took the life of Jaquan Pugh doesn't take another.
By reinforcing the practices that lead to success, we can better equip ourselves to manage risk and safeguard our workforce. This approach can greatly enhance workplace learning and maturity, enabling organizations to adapt to changes because workers from all levels of the organization are motivated and empowered to contribute to safety in meaningful ways.
We believe that this is the first wide scale discussion about Regulating Differently; it shouldn’t be the last.
