# Safety, Stat!

*Robert Slocomb · Safety & Human Error, Power, Stories & Cases*

A guest post from safety specialist Robert Slocomb (writing from the US water/wastewater construction industry) on why good lead-men often decline to step up to foreman. The reasons are structural rather than personal: foremen are 'time poor', working unpaid overtime and giving up family time, while leads control their own overtime; good leads have job security and don't get fired, whereas foremen, managers and directors are dismissed for the smallest offence; and most damagingly, foremen get blamed for every injury affecting their crew — the quickest resolution for 'time poor' managers — making the role thankless and prone to being dumped on. Slocomb diagnoses the root as a lack of unity between field and management: there should be one team and one purpose, but there are two. His proposed remedy is a 'trinity business' of three equal, mutually respectful parts — Production, Quality Control, and Safety — bound together by psychological safety as the glue. The piece is grounded in the lived reality of construction sites and the one-second, physiologically-driven calculations workers make under pressure, and frames psychological safety as attractive precisely because it engages with how people actually think and function.

- **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/safety-stat/
- **Read the full article on psychsafety.com:** https://psychsafety.com/safety-stat/
- **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?node=safety-stat

## Connected concepts (5)

- [PS & Trust](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-difference-between-trust-and-psychological-safety.md)
- [Blametropism](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/blametropism.md)
- [Job Security & PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/job-security-and-psychological-safety.md)
- [Myth of Self-Reliance](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/safety-and-the-myth-of-self-reliance.md)
- [Sharp & Blunt End](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-sharp-end-blunt-end-of-education.md)