Edwin G. Foulke, Jr., Partner in Fisher & Phillips and former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, spoke at the American Society of Safety Engineers, Region 4 Professional Development Conference about the changing nature of our workforce.
Existing employees are getting older and many will be retiring before too long.
Lots of critical knowledge, experience and skills will be lost. Younger people, who have grown up in an electronic world of texting and games, will replace these people. Many are out of shape and bordering on being over weight; some are developing diabetes. This will pose significant challenges to employers and the need to work safely and well.
These changes will pose even more challenges than those of the very high growth rates mentioned by Amir Farid in his Keynote address at the AIChE Conference mentioned above.
Seeing Safety as a Complex Adaptive System
This means we’ll have to learn to work together in new, safer ways.
This shift in our safety culture and the way we work is the core of our work and the subject of our Newsletters, Blogposts and Safety Flashes. When we make this shift, everything changes. The patterns and processes become clearer and our work with the people becomes much easier, resistance to change almost disappears, and new things can be implemented quickly and effectively.
