I’ve personally wondered for quite some time now if fear-based safety is actually effective. In my opinion, nothing good has ever come out of anything “fear-based”. “Fear-based” logic is almost always inaccurate, heightened, chaotic, and ultimately ineffective and even harmful. It almost seems counter-productive to the cause it’s trying to secure, and to me almost seems like it would instead instill an “I’m not scared, that won’t happen to me attitude.” Particularly among personalities that are quick to challenge directives, are typically overly-confident, etc. Fear-based safety for some reason just doesn’t feel like the right way to go about it, and we’re going to examine that as we take a look at the safety video below. Quick warning, this video is extremely gruesome (and mildly humorous. Sorry, but some of it is so over-the-top that I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. If I catch heck for that, so be it.)
Without further ado, here’s the most savage safety training video on planet earth:
So, did that work? Did that make you want to don your safety glasses and use a ladder correctly? Here were my thoughts while watching that video for the first:
“That was fake.”
“Why isn’t there any actual content/lessons to be learned here? It simply incites fear (poorly)”
“Lol, stop.”
“Well, that was something.”
“Ew.”
I feel like a truly effective safety training video is supposed to provoke thought and reflection with employees. I admit that this certainly provokes a certain feeling, but the feeling isn’t relative to an effective safety lesson. As a kid, did “you’ll get cavities!” ever stop you from eating sweets and candy? Probably not, and I feel like, on a larger scale, that same principle is pretty ineffective.
Maybe some safety managers can weigh-in here, has fear-based safety ever worked for you??
