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I'm here to denounce something that needs to be addressed. When we look at accident data in Latin America and other developing countries, we notice a worrying trend: the numbers are high, significant, and, above all, revealing. These numbers aren't just statistics; they tell the story of an organizational culture that perpetuates risks, sickens its professionals, and often costs lives.
It's about this culture that we want to talk about, a culture that needs to be named, confronted, and transformed. It's the culture of safety denial — a harmful pattern that, even in the 21st century, still defines how many organizations handle workplace safety.
The data that speaks about our culture
In Latin America, where industrial development is accompanied by social and economic inequalities, accident rates remain alarming. Local organizations frequently show a disproportionate focus on short-term goals, neglecting the processes and resources necessary to ensure safety.
Studies indicate that developing countries show:
- Higher workplace mortality rates than developed countries.
- High frequency of serious and fatal accidents in industrial and construction sectors.
- Devaluation of prevention: safety investments are low, being treated as dispensable costs.
These numbers aren't just reflections of technical or operational failures. They reflect a system where safety is seen as secondary, and accidents as unusual or inevitable fatalities.
The culture of safety denial
This reality is sustained by a deeply pathological organizational culture, marked by:
1. Systemic Negligence
Accidents are treated as isolated events, unconnected to the environment, processes, or organizational decisions. It's common to hear phrases like:
• "It never happened before, it was bad luck."
• "We don't have time to fix this now."
This stance ignores the basic premise of safety: every accident has a cause and can be prevented.
2. Reactivity and Blame
The reactive culture is one that only acts when a problem has already occurred — and even then, the focus is on finding culprits, not understanding causes. Attributing responsibility exclusively to the worker creates an environment of fear and distrust, preventing errors from being reported and corrected.
3. Pressure for Results
The relentless pursuit of productivity makes safety seem like an obstacle rather than an ally. Leaders and managers prioritize deliveries at any cost, and operations often ignore safety warnings to meet deadlines and serve clients.
This dynamic creates constant conflicts between operations and safety areas, transforming safety professionals into targets of resistance and hostility.
A reality that sickens professionals
Amid this environment, safety professionals face devastating emotional and ethical challenges. They carry the responsibility of protecting lives but frequently have their voices silenced and their recommendations ignored.
This reality leads to:
• Emotional illness: constant feeling of powerlessness and frustration.
• Professional burnout: high turnover and profession abandonment.
• Internal conflict: between fighting for changes or conforming to pressures to preserve their own job.
How systemic do we need to be to transform this reality?
To reverse this scenario of pathological and denialist culture, it's necessary to adopt a systemic and strategic approach. It's not enough to act in isolation or implement specific actions; we need to advance in safety governance, ensuring that changes reach all levels of the organization.
1. Building solid safety governance
Safety governance must be structured to act as a strategic pillar. This includes:
• Involving top leadership and the administrative board in safety decisions.
• Integrating safety into corporate objectives, not as a cost, but as an essential value.
• Establishing continuous auditing and monitoring mechanisms, ensuring safety isn't neglected in any process.
2. Evaluating organizational culture
It's necessary to diagnose the maturity level of organizational culture regarding safety. This means evaluating how leaders and employees perceive and handle risks, identifying critical points for transformation.
3. Training leaders and professionals
Leaders need to be trained to incorporate safe practices into their management. More than that, they must be living examples that safety is a priority. Investing in technical and emotional training of safety professionals is also essential so they are prepared for daily confrontations.
Denouncing is the first step to change
The culture of denial isn't an abstraction; it's real, tangible, and lethal. Its impacts aren't limited to numbers or statistics. We're talking about lost lives, destroyed families, and sick professionals.
We need to look at accident data and understand what they tell us: that there's a pattern to be broken, a mindset to be transformed. We cannot continue treating safety as something optional or secondary.
Denouncing is the first step toward change. But beyond that, we need to act with intentionality and systematically. May this article be a wake-up call, a call for reflection, and, above all, a call to action.
The question I leave is: How long will we accept that the pursuit of results comes above life?
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