DURING THE RECENT Occupational Keynote at the 2014 NSC Congress & Expo, OSHA administrator David Michaels stirred up a little controversy when he said, "Just focusing on personal responsibility isn't useful, and it isn't the law." His remarks, which focused on the responsibility of employers to provide a safe workplace, were heard by some to be a criticism of behavior-based safety. As the CEO of a global firm that has done substantial work in the field for the past 30 years, I want to go on record stating that I firmly agree with Dr. Michaels. I will also go further and say that the tendency to blame employees, even 40-plus years after the creation of OSHA, is a sign of a deep cognitive dissonance within the safety field generally - and a failure of safety leadership specifically.
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