Attitude

Attitude Safety Talk

How does attitude affect how your work and safety on the job? What is your attitude today? We all have days where our overall attitude could improve, but how is yours towards your coworkers, boss, or safety on a day to day basis? If you are generally a negative person, what effects would a more positive attitude have on your life and on your work?

Positive Attitude and Health

There are many reasons to strive to have a positive attitude. Outside of the obvious reasons, such as improving your mood and being more enjoyable to be around, researchers have been studying how it can benefit our health. The Mayo Clinic mentions possible benefits such as:

Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

Attitude and Safety on the Job

A negative attitude can lead to carelessness, complacency, taking shortcuts, or even serve as a distraction from a work task. A negative attitude towards safety specifically will eventually result in unsafe behaviors. Unsafe behaviors lead to incidents occurring on the job resulting in injury or property damage. Is your overall attitude as it relates to safety negative? If so, why is that?

How to Improve Your Attitude?

Recognize it. The first step to improve it is to recognize if it is leaning towards the negative side. Ask yourself how your attitude is today and why it is in that state. If it is negative then you need to try to improve it to be a safer, more efficient worker.
What is the source of the issue(s)? After you recognize the state of your attitude you need to find the source of your issues that are making it negative. What is bothering you? Is it a coworker? A family situation? Whatever it may be, take note of the negative sources.
Address the issues. Take the time to address what is having a negative effect on your attitude. For example, if it is an issue with a coworker or boss, have a conversation with them. Most issues can be resolved with a constructive conversation. If the issue cannot be resolved with a conversation with the other person, go to another level of management to resolve it.
Remain aware of your attitude. It is important to do a daily self-check. A good way to do this is to monitor your thoughts or conversations you are having with others. If you are having more negative conversations than positive ones, then it is a good indicator that you need to improve your attitude. It is easy for your attitude to begin to tip towards the negative side as stressors pile back on in your life. There is always going to be issues in your life, but it is important to not let them have a negative effect on you for an extended amount of time