How Supply Chain Challenges Spur Safetys Prominence
- By Robert Pater
- Feb 01, 2022
You don’t have to look around very far to see the obvious, that labor is becoming scarce throughout the US. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Labor Shortage Is Here to Stay. Businesses Are Adjusting”: “… the U.S. is still missing around 4.3 million workers. The absence comes as U.S. employers are struggling to fill more than 10 million job openings and meet soaring consumer demand.”
It’s not just a temporary/pandemic-spiked thing. A survey of respected economists revealed: “Many expect the labor shortage to last at least several more years, and some say it’s permanent.” Worker deficits range the gamut from restaurant employees to healthcare professionals. However, the supply chain has been especially hard-hit, responsible for moving raw materials to manufacturers to form their products, then moving these out the factory door to fulfillment centers, and then, in turn, distributing them to millions of end users. Consider, Amy Davidson Sorkin wrote, in “The Supply-Chain Mystery”, published in The New Yorker: “What’s often at the heart of a supply-chain issue is a labor issue…. ‘Just in time’ delivery works only if you can deliver.” The weakest link? Every part of this chain depends on workers who will and do show up and actually able to perform high-demand tasks.
While this article overviewed several business strategies for coping with chain weaknesses, there was one glaring omission – the crucial importance of ramping up safety culture and performance. Attraction, retention and human performance translates into newly critical dimensions of next-level organizational Safety. IMO, safety professionals have long been on the “defensive” (no, not just concerned their positions would be eliminated at the first drop of any cost-reductions – although there’s been that.) “Defensive,” as in keenly focused on not letting bad things, like incidents, happen (that, regrettably, some managers and workers don’t actually believe will ever occur.) On reducing or ideally eliminating risk (though you can never get rid of them all at work and in homes.)
But shift forward, the workscape’s different now. It’s clearly not a buyer’s market for workers as some people are no longer available, many have voluntarily left the workforce, and others see quitting as a real option if they don’t feel well-treated by or aligned with their employer, its mission and practices. It now seems companies’ “Help Wanted” pleas and posters are prominently out, often with highly-sweeten-the-pot offers besieging people to pretty please sign up to work with them.
This article originally appeared in the February 1, 2022 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.