Photo by Kris Meade
For most of us, a safety mindset develops on the backside of an accident, an injury or a near miss. These incidents provide life lessons, teaching us to make better choices and take preventive measures.
One December evening when I was a boy, my brother and I were fetching wood for the fireplace. It was dark, and my feet were bare. We were both reaching as high as we could to grasp logs from the stack when a stick of wood that was probably four feet long popped loose and landed squarely on my left big toe.
To this day, I sometimes threaten to remove my shoe and sock to expose that permanently misshapen big toe as an example of what happens when we fail to take caution.
I’m fortunate that my injury became a humorous and educational anecdote. But the stakes are much higher for the lineworkers who build and maintain our electric delivery systems. Because they work around high-voltage electricity, using powerful tools—often at heights well above a cord of firewood—safety is a serious matter. For them, learning from experience is too high a cost.
Peggy Dantzler, our organization’s vice president of loss control and training, began her career as a lineworker. She says that “a culture of safety is like rowing a boat upstream. If you ever quit rowing, you’ll go backwards.”
So, how does your co-op create a culture of safety?
Each year, South Carolina’s electric cooperatives hold a lineworker rodeo. On the surface, it’s a friendly competition. But at its core, it’s about reenforcing safe practices.
Competitors are first tested on their knowledge of the safety manual. They then must apply those concepts in competitions that mirror their everyday work, climbing poles to replace streetlights and change out transformers. The events may be timed, but speed doesn’t count as much as the proper execution of the assigned task. No step can be missed, and no shortcut can be taken.
The rodeo is just one part of each co-op’s culture of safety. Each day, before lineworkers and service technicians leave their co-op, crew members inspect personal protective equipment, tools, vehicles and even their uniforms to ensure they are in working order. Before work begins at the jobsite, briefings provide an opportunity to review the hazards and appropriate safety measures. That communication never stops because each person bears responsibility for the others.
Co-ops also hold regular safety meetings where Dantzler’s loss control and training team teaches everything from first-aid techniques to chemical safety standards.
This culture of safety is not limited to lineworkers. It involves all co-op employees, whether they work in the warehouse, member services department or administration. Everyone is trained. Everyone is accountable. Everyone must help row the boat. Those people you see outside, keeping your power on, spend approximately 50 hours each month training and discussing workplace safety.
Constant rowing can be tedious and tiresome, but the effort is well worth it every time co-op employees clock out and return safely to their families and friends.
Mike Couick is president and CEO of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc., the statewide association of not-for-profit electric cooperatives.