Choices at Home and Safety on the Job
There are many choices we make at home that can have major effects at work. Whether it is safety-related or lifestyle choices, many of these choices have repercussions that carry over from home into the workplace. It is important to realize how closely connected our personal and professional can be.
One Time Poor Choices Can Affect Work
There are choices you make at home that can lead to safety issues on the job. For example, you go out with your friends to a late Sunday night football game. You choose to go to the bar with your buddies afterwards and drink until 1AM knowing you have to be up at 4AM to go to work. You make it into work on time, but you still are feeling the effects of alcohol and you are very fatigued. You are now putting everyone and the company at a risk for an injury or some type of loss.
Lifestyle Choices and Work
Even choices that seem minor or extremely personal can have a significant effect on a person’s ability to work safe. An example of this is a police officer who has become extremely overweight due to not wanting to maintain his fitness. He is still allowed to have his job and can perform it, but in a much-diminished capacity than he used to be able to. His choice to be sedentary outside work can put himself and other fellow officers at risk on the job.
Even choices that are perceived as positive can have a negative effect at work. For example, you choose to take a second job cutting grass during the day when you are off from your night job for extra money. A few weeks into this routine you realize how hard it is to get enough rest before going into your night shift job as a forklift operator. One night at work you start to fall asleep and strike a support beam to a large shelving system. Half of the shelves collapse dropping expensive computer components to the floor below. The company now faces a loss of over $400,000. Sure, you may get fired, but how will this affect everyone else at that worksite and the company on a larger scale?
Summary
We do not owe our entire lives to our jobs. We do have the freedom to do basically anything we want to outside of work. It is just important to realize how these decisions affect not only yourself at work, but also your fellow coworkers and the company as a whole.