Every day we are exposed to hazards and risks in the workplace and to protect ourselves and our employees we put controls and measures in place to mitigate these exposures. Dedicated teams and countless resources are spent making sure that employees are safe and that they leave the same way they came to work. How is it then that we continue to miss hazards that are sometimes staring us straight in the face. Despite our best efforts, hazards still persist, so what can we do about it
We all have experiences that guide how we interpret our relationships, surroundings and behaviors. Biases can sometimes lead us to make incorrect assumptions about what we interpret to be true and can have a dramatic impact on outcomes. Even when we see something that doesn’t meet our expectations, our subconscious filters out relevant specifics or relies on our past experiences to draw conclusions instead of the facts. To see more clearly, we need to learn how to strip out our biases and look at things in a more object light. Having a systematic approach and the right tools in place can help you strip away these biases and see the facts and details more accurately.
Ever spend countless hours working on a project, getting frustrated because something just wasn’t right, only to have a colleague walk up, look at it for two seconds and then figure out the problem? When our focus is narrowed, or we are only looking at certain pieces of the puzzle we can sometimes miss the big picture. Being able to take a step back and See the whole PICTURE™ is an approach that teaches you how to improve observational ability not only for workplace safety improvement but also in everyday aspects of your life.
Visual Literacy can teach you how to slow down, look deeply and see things you may have missed – critical for identifying hazards and preventing costly mistakes. Recent data from one of our clients revealed, that using the elements of visual literacy 132 issues were identified and 25 hazards corrected through the companies “Find It Fix It” hazard recognition and correction initiative. Proof that training our people on established disciplines can improve our ability to be able to see what’s in front of us and identify the hazards that we’ve been missing.
We invite you to attend one of our upcoming workshops where you will learn tools that can help you see more clearly.