What are Random Acts of Safety? Join the Mission
Episode 014
Nov 7, 2022
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In this episode...
Have you ever helped someone or made a situation safe for the future of others?
Example: might be seeing trip hazards whilst on holidays and removing them or picking up some glass from the pavement to ensure the next person who passes does not hurt themselves?
No one asked you to do this you just felt compelled to do so.
These are Random Acts of Safety and do look very similar to Random Acts of Kindness which is the movement that inspired our vision for the Random Acts of Safety mission.
Our mission has us asking - What did I do to keep someone safe today?
During this episode, we share some ideas on how you can contribute and how these Random Acts of Safety impact our bodies and moods.
Are you up for the challenge?
So how did this idea start?
Keeping the people, we work with and care about safe should be as simple as doing daily Random Acts of Safety.
The Random Acts of Safety mission was inspired by the Random Acts of Kindness movement.
FYI World Kindness Day is on the 13th of November, and the inspiration for this podcast.
What is a Random Act of Safety?
Let's first look at the description of a Random Act of Kindness.
A Random act of Kindness is a non-premeditated, inconsistent action designed to offer kindness towards the outside world.
The mission of The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation is to make kindness the norm.
Inspired by the moment, we thought, let's create our own Random Acts of Safety mission.
#randomactsofsafety
Because we would like to make keeping each other safe the norm and part of your DNA.
Your role as a Safety Leader
Random acts of safety are about consistent small daily encouragement to move people towards making safety part of your and their DNA.
As safety leaders, let's encourage random acts of safety.
Here are some ideas...for both on the job and at home
- Have safety conversations with people walking and texting.
- Turn pot handles out of reach of children.
- Check in on someone’s well-being.
- Encourage your colleagues to get up and move around.
- Take time to stop and regroup during tasks.
What ideas do you have - share them with us here.
Remember, safety is both psychological as much as it is physical.
Random Acts of Safety are minor yet impactful changes to encourage people to stay safe and show you care.
As Safety Leaders, our role and, more importantly, our responsibility is to model the way, so we encourage you to regularly ask yourself, your colleagues, family and friends, “What do you do to keep someone or something safe today?”
Here are some ideas for Random Acts of Safety in the workplace.
Do we have random acts of safety in our working environment?
Absolutely. We do them daily. Often in high-hazard industries, random acts of safety are considered our daily observations and or recorded on observation cards when we see unsafe behaviour or an unsafe condition.
And our random act of safety may be something we don't shout out about. Instead, we may have that one-on-one conversation with somebody about unsafe behaviour or condition.
But what we've done is shown that we cared enough to stop someone from doing something that could harm them and consider the implications.
Do something small daily to help others make safer choices, and share it via observations in your workplace.
It could be as simple as having a conversation with the colleague going down the stairs, not using the handrail or not using a trailing hand technique to remind them.
Or, it may be helping somebody move a manual load when you can see it is too heavy for them to move on their own. Just stepping up and saying, Hey, can I give you a hand with it because I don't want to see you hurt yourself could make all the difference in the world.
Or, at that moment, seeing someone lifting something perfectly within a weight they can lift on their own, but they're not using a good technique or posture. So your random act of safety may be, hey, Karin, before you lift that, can we talk about lifting with your legs and not with your back because I'm just concerned that you're going to hurt yourself? And going through a little bit of a coaching or mentoring session on this is how we have lifting techniques that will ensure that we don't hurt ourselves going forward and end up with injuries.
There are so many opportunities for random acts of safety in the working environment, from helping somebody with a task to helping someone who is not getting it (any task) right on their own or they're not doing it in a way that could be as safe.
Why it works? Let's talk about Oxytocin.
Oxytocin is our body's feel-good hormone/chemical that makes us feel good.
It is responsible for love, friendship, loyalty, and much more, including our conversational agility. More on that in a future episode.
Something important to note is that it only lasts approx—4 hours at a time. However, Cortisol, our action and stress hormone, lasts around 27 hours. So it is essential to have regular oxytocin hits to help regulate our systems.
There are many ways to get Oxytocin.
Human contact is one of them, and why it feels good to get a hug.
Another way we get Oxytocin is by acting with kindness or generosity without expecting anything in return.
Somebody doing something nice for us can feel a little overwhelming because we get Oxytocin when that happens, so we need to embrace that feeling, not push it away.
Another fantastic way to increase Oxytocin is by hearing and witnessing stories of generosity that release Oxytocin in you, so it feels good to hear or witness these Random Acts of Safety stories.
And the more Oxytocin we have in our bodies, it biologically makes us want to be more generous. So this is the human body's way of getting us to look after each other.
Think about that. - remember how you felt the last time you heard or witnessed an act of safety or kindness.
Why do we watch Cat memes? because they make us feel good
The more we practice and share Random Acts of Safety we will encourage more Oxytocin globally and care and safety.
How cool is that?
Emotional Gem
Today's Emotional Gem is... GENEROSITY
- Story: To give without expectations
- Impulse: (what action does it trigger in us?) To give without expectations
- Purpose: Provokes us to share our resources
The focus of generosity is 'others' and our desire to help them as best we can. This fits in nicely with the Random Acts of Safety mission. True generosity does not have strings attached and doesn't depend on thanks or acknowledgement.
Generosity is an emotion we generally learn from the environment we grew up in; for example, if it was considered a high value in your family or community, you may find giving in a generous way quite easy.
Some people struggle to be generous. This may have several roots, including fear from past experience, feelings of awkwardness or beliefs. For example, 'everyone should make their own way.'
Ways to practice 'generosity' could be giving time to listen, offering to do a small act, or doing something anonymously if you feel awkward. Generosity does not depend on material resources. With practice, this can become a healthy habit.
It is worth noting that you consider that your generosity is made in terms of an offer that can be accepted or declined to safeguard the dignity of the other person or situation.
One way to practice Generosity is by sharing your Random Acts of Safety with our community - you can do this by visiting safetycollaborations.com, pressing the big pink bottom at the top right of the menu, completing the RAoS form, then using the hashtag #randomactsofsafety on your socials.
Similar feeling emotion is Gratitude.
We, humans, are emotional beings, and at the end of each session, our gift to you is an insight into an emotion.
Did you know that we have over 250 emotions? Yet, we only understand or talk about +/- 12. By exploring these, you may be surprised at what you learn.
Karin has been studying Emotional Literacy with Dan Newby, the founder of the School of Emotions and references emotional literacy regularly during her coaching conversations.
Resources
We use the iPhone app Emote: Mastering Your Emotions to select the Emotional Gem for each episode. (this is a paid-for app)
To learn more about emotional literacy and access the app visit the School of Emotions.
Visit Random Acts of Kindness to learn more.
About the Show
Our purpose in sharing this podcast is to have a chinwag (conversation) to help people change how they think and behave about safety.
We do this by engaging in dialogue and testing the levels of trust and psychological safety, which are core to organisational culture. Making safety part of your DNA so that your people speak up, show up, do right, and become safer every day for yourself, your team, and your business.
We will explore topics related to organisational and safety culture, leadership, the language of risk, emotional literacy, psychological safety, conversational agility, intercultural intelligence, and whatever else pops up during our conversations—sharing our experiences and learnings.
We intend to share nuggets of wisdom that will challenge your perspectives, potentially solve a nagging problem, share actions you can implement, and give you at least one aha moment.
And, if you enjoyed the show and gained value, please share with just one other person to help spread the word.
