Introduction
The basis behind the implementation of project safety measures is to ensure that employees are well protected against the possible complications that may arise from a particular project. This is due to the fact that not only are companies liable for the potential damages that may occur if they subject their employees to potentially dangerous activities without sufficient protective measures in place, the negative repercussions associated with dangerous working conditions combined with an apparently uncaring company would result in very few talented individuals willing to work in the company in the first place.
However, despite the presence of safety measures in project activities, there continues to be violations on the part of employees resulting in them being exposed to potentially hazardous situations despite the best attempts of the company to prevent them from being subjected to such an experience. It is based on this situation that this paper will investigate the reason why individuals within a company routinely waste the excessive safety measures that are acquired for project activities.
Procrastination
The work of Bartoska and Subrt in the article “the effect of human agent in project management” sheds light on the impact of the human agent (i.e. an employee) on project management outcomes. Bartoska and Subrt (2011) present the assumption that despite the various measures that are implemented by a company to ensure that a project deadline can be met or that a project can be implemented smoothly with all the necessary tools in place, it is the human agent that is introduced into the project management matrix that often creates the problem when it comes to internal operations or the project outcome.
Bartoska and Subrt (2011) help to prove this point by utilizing the concept of procrastination as a means of explaining why, despite being given enough time for completion, that a project can at times wind up being late. This is due to the fact that the amount of work done by a person throughout the entire project life cycle is not even. Due to procrastination, it is often the case that work continues to be put off until it reaches the point that the deadline for the project is near yet it is nowhere near completion with the employees in question rushing to complete it towards the final days of the deadline.
Applying the approach of Bartoska and Subrt (2011), it can be assumed that despite the safety measures that are implemented in a project that are meant to ensure the safety of the workers involved, it is the human element that is introduced into the project management matrix that, more often than not, does not explicitly follow instructions resulting in considerable safety violations.
Passivity
Aside from the work of Bartoska and Subrt (2011), another way of examining the issue is from the article “The Positive Bystander Effect: Passive Bystanders Increase Helping in Situations With High Expected Negative Consequences for the Helper” by Fischer and Greitemeyer (2013). The authors present the notion that the presence of pasive bystanders actually acts as a means of reducing the probability of people intervening when it comes to emergencies. This means that if there are enough sufficiently passive individuals that are at the scene of a crime that is about to occur, it is unlikely that others would contribute towards the prevention of the incident.
This particular perspective is further compounded by Fischer and Greitemeyer (2013) who state that the level of passiveness actually increases depending on the perceived danger that an individual may encounter. As such, this creates a situation where the perception of increased danger combined with the passiveness of the surrounding people results in an individual being unlikely to act despite the situation demanding it.
Taking the work of Fischer and Greitemeyer (2013) into consideration, one way of explaining the actions of individuals within companies who routinely waste excessive safety measures is due to the general level of passivity of the employees within the company when it comes to preventing someone from violating the aforementioned safety measures. First and foremost, it should be noted that the act of confronting someone in order to tell them not to do something can be considered as an aggressive action with a perceived level of danger attached to it (i.e. conflict in the workplace).
As such, an employee would be reluctant to confront another employee to prevent them from violating a safety procedure if they perceive the act to be a source of conflict. This particular notion is further compounded by other people in the same project following the same train of thought resulting in no one taking the appropriate steps to prevent someone from violating a safety procedure.
Multitasking
The article “Stop Multitasking: Doing It All Accomplishes Nothing” by Seeber (2015) presents the notion that working on multiple things at the same time actually detracts from an individuals capacity to actually prioritize and do a job properly (Seeber, 2015). It is based on this perspective that one assumption that can be developed is that employees are simply working on multiple things at the same time to the extent that they violate safety procedures without really realizing it.
Reference List
Bartoska, J., & Subrt, T. (2012). The effect of human agent in project management. Central European Journal Of Operations Research, 20(3), 369-382.
Fischer, P., & Greitemeyer, T. (2013). The Positive Bystander Effect: Passive Bystanders Increase Helping in Situations With High Expected Negative Consequences for the Helper. Journal Of Social Psychology, 153(1), 1-5
Seeber, C. M. (2015). Stop Multitasking: Doing It All Accomplishes Nothing. Journal Of Financial Planning, 28(5), 38-39.