What is the state of your lunch room?

I recently had a discussion with a behavioral expert.  This person is a PhD Psychologist who specializes in workplace safety.  He told me that he could tell more about an organization’s safety culture by looking at their break room than a whole day of site interviews.

Key things this person looks for:

Sloppy Sink?

Drab Walls?

Stuff on tables?

Decent quality tables?

What’s in the fridge?

We talk about housekeeping all the time with respect to the job site.  One benefit of housekeeping is that it shows caring and consistency.  There are articles written about Cause and Effect of Clutter.  Does clutter result in the behavior of the organization or does the organization behavior results in the clutter?  Perhaps this is a feedback loop (“death spiral”) similar to the Cause Map of the Financial Mess.

A company I was recently working with had adopted the 5D approach and one element was office cleanliness.  A picture was posted on the wall of the office before the process was implemented.  There was another picture of the same organized office as the process started.  Guess how easy it was to compare?  What kind of behavioral influences are now on that individual?

One personal observation is that clean machinery makes it easy to detect a problem.  Leon Hess was one of the last Oil Company Owners.  He insisted that the oil refinery be darn near spotless.  As an engineer for Hess Oil I thought this was a bit over the top and even wasteful since after all we worked with heavy, gunky, crude oil.  But now that I have more experience under my belt I see that by removing the clutter it becomes much easier to see the remaining hazards.  Even a casual observer can detect a flange leak or a hose strung out across a walkway.

The cleanliness also instilled pride when talking with peers in the industry.  Our attitudes became a match for the work environment.

(One of our instructors went thru a de-cluttering process a couple of years ago.  This can be a freedom and a burden at the same time.  If you commit make sure you commit fully.)

What does your break room say?

Cheers, Loyd.