FOSTERING A SAFETY CULTURE

LABORATORY SAFETY FOR CHEMISTRY STUDENTS

DEVELOPMENT/
PROMOTING A
SAFETY CULTURE
• This section discusses
approaches to establishing and
promoting a strong safety culture
among those people who are
working under your supervision
or leadership.
INCIDENT: METHANOL FIRE

A high school teacher, carrying out a

chemistry demonstration, was using
Three students received serious burns
methanol with some chemical salts
to their faces, necks, arms, hands, and
when a sudden explosion occurred
legs.
that burned several students in the
front row.

Media reported that there was a lack

The other students in the classroom
of safety oversight that is common in
ran from the room.
many schools and inspections are rare.
 What lessons • “Safety is everyone’s responsibility.” You have probably

can be learned heard this before, and you may find yourself saying this
someday!

from this • Some of you may find yourself playing a significant role
assisting in or overseeing a laboratory session as an
incident? undergraduate Teaching Assistant.
• Those of you who go to graduate school in chemistry will
almost certainly be a Teaching Assistant in the
undergraduate labs for a few years.
• This may require that you set the tone and standard for
safety.
• In fact, if you are a paid laboratory assistant or instructor
(an employee), then you do have responsibilities for safety.
• When you graduate and become employed, you may find the safety of a laboratory
and the people working in it are now your responsibility.
• That is, you will be officially charged with ensuring the safety of the laboratories
that you will manage.
• You may be in charge if you become a chemistry teacher in a local school system,
and suddenly you are the “resident expert” who is responsible for establishing and
maintaining safety for students using the laboratories in the school where you work.
• This includes safety for all parts of programs and facilities, including conducting
experiments safely, maintaining the facilities themselves (laboratory, stockroom)
and safety equipment, preparing reagents, managing chemical waste, teaching
safety, and conducting safe demonstrations.
• This may also be the case if you go to work in an industrial operation, where you
must not only do your own work but are assigned responsibility for safety of
laboratory operations and those people working in those laboratories.
• The most important thing that you must do is to establish and promote a strong,
enthusiastic, vibrant safety culture.
Safety Ethic

• Leadership in safety is the key to

success – and that means not only
telling people how to do things safely,
but you must follow the same guidance
that you gave to those under your
charge.
• In the workplace, this safety ethic
reflects a mindset of attitude and
responsibility that keeps you, and
others, safe in the laboratory.
Understanding What Motivates People
• Leadership is different from management
• Leaders inspire people to follow and take actions by seeking to impart the need
for responsibility, while managers work to ensure that people meet goals and
outcomes and that they are held accountable for achieving these.
• There are many qualities that are common in leaders.
• Passion for their vision is one of those, and this must be one of the qualities that
you exhibit as a leader in safety.
• You must be honest and trustworthy to be a safety leader and you must be able
to motivate people to do their jobs in a safe manner.
• You must lead by example so that you always follow safety procedures every time
you enter the laboratory.
• Always wear appropriate safety gear, and always consider safety in all that
you do. Overall, you should be one who has adopted The Safety Ethics so
that you not only believe in the value of safety, but you strive to ensure that
safety becomes an integral part of your everyday life.
• Leaders learn to communicate effectively so that they can get their
message across to those who need to hear it.
• Their words should be inspiring and positive to emphasize what is possible.
• A safety leader should continually strive to learn more about safety and
how to relate the importance of safety to other people.
• Leaders seek to educate in safety rather than relying only on safety
training.
• Safety education imparts basic knowledge so that people themselves
understand safety principles and will be able themselves to select
appropriate safety procedures and approaches.
• Leaders seek to provide an understanding about why safety is
important, offering examples about learning lessons in safety.
• Leaders are good at listening to others to better understand their
perspective, which in turn allows leaders to offer sound advice,
guidance, support, or leadership.
• To get others to accept the importance of safety, to adopt a positive
attitude about safety, and to conduct safety in a safe manner requires
the leaders to lead.
• Those in leadership roles must have positive attitudes toward safety,
vibrant passions for safety, and strong personal commitments to
safety exemplified by their examples.
Qualities of Safety Leaders
Inspire people so that they want to be safe – transparent communication to build an
honest and trustworthy relationship.
Lead by example, supporting safety in their actions and in their investments in time
and resources.
Hold people accountable for safety processes and activities, rather than specific
outcomes.
Educate others in safety with examples and logic, using opportunities for instructing,
coaching, mentoring, and delegating.
Listen first. Try to understand the other person’s perspective before offering advice,
support, or direction.
Promote ownership of the safety process by seeking others’ involvement in the safety
process and allowing them opportunities to achieve desired outcomes.
Provide expectations rather than mandates – giving people
opportunities to make their own decisions.
Express some “uncertainty” as to how to reach safety goals—giving
great freedom to others to figure out how to accomplish these goals.
Understand that some things cannot be measured, but it is important
to increase self-respect, personal control, optimism, and a strong
sense of being a part of the safety culture.
Identify that people have skills and qualities over a range, so that
individuals have particular abilities to accomplish certain things well
and others not as well.
A Battle Between Safety and Human Nature
• Safety should be an internally driven value, people should understand
safety theory, people should teach safety, safety leaders can be
developed, and the focus of safety should be safety processes not safety
outcomes.
• These principles lead you to continually work on how to do things safely
rather than just emphasizing a “zero” incident rate or time away from
work for an incident.
• Geller points out that safety continually conflicts with human nature,
which seeks to do those things that are convenient, comfortable, and
beneficial, since safety can sometimes lead to discomfort, inconvenience,
and inefficiency of time.
• Geller notes the importance of observation and feedback in
establishing strong safety behaviors, and people tend to see their
failures as caused by external factors not under their control rather
than their internal failures.
• Geller places strong emphasis on active caring, a proactive process
that is critical to building a strong safety culture; empowering people
to make good safety decisions can build self confidence, optimistic
outlook, and a sense of personal control of safety.
Building Positive Attitudes Toward Safety
• To impart a strong positive attitude toward safety requires continual reinforcement
of safety’s importance in every experiment that is conducted.
• To have a strong understanding of safety requires that a person recognizes hazards,
is able to assess how exposures to these hazards might occur, and knows how to
manage and control hazards so that exposure and risk are minimized.
• Allowing people with whom you work to learn about the hazards, to identify the
routes of exposure, and to learn how best to manage these hazards, is the key to
bringing an understanding of safety.
• Also, learning about emergency procedures, how emergency equipment operates,
and how to make decisions about emergencies can bring a better understanding for
the need for safety and at the same time prepare the person to work in the
laboratory where incidents may occur.
• Becoming a good leader requires that you have good people skills,
that you are able to listen and communicate well with people and
that people come to trust your judgment.
• These are not easy skills to learn, but it is possible for people to learn
to be good leaders.
• If you are interested in learning more about leadership, there are
many books on leadership, and you should make an effort to continue
to build your skills by reading these kinds of books.
Safety Cultures in Academic Institutions
• Due to several famous lab incidents in the past decade, there has
recently been more attention paid to safety culture in academic
institutions.
• The difference between academic institutions and nonacademic
institutions is largely due to differences in the management structure
and lines of authority in each case.
• It may not at first be obvious that these differences should influence
the “practice of safety” but experience has shown that it does.
• Indeed, academic leaders can have a tremendous influence on the
safety culture of their institution – either in a positive or negative way.