For far too long, safety has been complicated, and it increases in complexity year after year. Safety professionals write long articles using large words to explain complex ideas that appear in prestigious publications. Safety procedures and systems become bloated and more intricate as layers and rules are continually added to them (but are rarely ever removed). Safety training focuses more on presenting information and less on helping people remember it.
However, the more complicated safety becomes, the harder it is for people to understand it. When safety is harder to understand, people not only want to avoid it but it also requires more work for safety professionals to manage it. Yet, each person’s safety is best managed by themselves. To achieve this, safety needs to be personal, realistic, and memorable.
Our world is full of hazards, and every day, thousands of people will experience an accident or injury that could have a major impact on their life. A student has a car accident while driving to school and can’t afford another vehicle. A woman’s credit card information is used for unauthorized purchases, and she must spend multiple days to resolve the issue. A construction worker injures his back on the job and has difficulty finding a different job in another profession. A father falls off a ladder while cleaning the gutters and is unable to work for several months.
There are so many ways that we can experience an accident or injury, and the most unfortunate part is that the majority of them are preventable. Safety is about protecting people from getting hurt. One of the best ways for us to accomplish this goal is to help each person improve their ability to identify hazards. When one person improves their hazard awareness, we all benefit from it. The R.I.S.C. Assessment was developed to help each person understand which hazards they are most vulnerable to and provide them with the personalized information they need to eliminate, manage, or avoid them.
Safety doesn’t have to be complicated. The more complicated it becomes, the more safety professionals become gatekeepers of safety and the further away we get from accomplishing our main goal of keeping people safe. We must find better ways to educate people about safety so that they can take a more active role in preventing accidents and injuries. To achieve this, safety needs to be focused on individuals, realistic in how it’s implemented, and delivered in a way people can remember the information.
When it comes to safety, not everything can be simple, but that doesn’t mean we have to make everything hard either. Complex measures should be used when necessary, but in those areas where they aren’t needed, we must try and simplify things so that anybody, regardless of experience, profession, training, or educational level can understand, relate to, and choose to follow. Our safety improves exponentially when we take an active role in preserving it. That’s why the R.I.S.C. Assessment’s primary focus is you, and it was designed to give you the information you need to help improve your safety.
The R.I.S.C. Assessment was designed to be universal, sustainable, relatable, practical, and memorable.
The R.I.S.C. Assessment can be used by anyone no matter where they live, what profession they work in, or what they know about safety. It can also be used by any organization in any industry, as the categories measured in the R.I.S.C. Assessment apply to all types of businesses.
A person’s life changes over time, and therefore so do the hazards and risks they will be exposed to. The R.I.S.C. Assessment can be taken multiple times (typically once each year) to reevaluate a person’s R.I.S.C. levels and improve their hazard awareness.
To effectively connect with participants, each individual needs to feel that the information provided applies to them. The R.I.S.C. Assessment uses common observations and scenarios that nearly everyone can relate to in some form or fashion.
Before a person will use any strategy provided to them, they must first feel that they are realistic. The R.I.S.C. Assessment provides a variety of practical and easy-to-use strategies for each category that participants can choose from to improve their R.I.S.C. levels.
For a person to create a memory, three main processes are required: encoding, storage, and retrieval. The R.I.S.C. Assessment uses basic language, concepts, and visual examples to convey information in a way that helps participants understand, remember, and recall it when necessary.
Tommy Rebecchi is an Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Professional with over 10 years of experience in the EHS field. He is a Marine Corps veteran, Eagle Scout, and Certified Safety Professional (CSP) holding a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and a master’s degree in occupational safety management. In pursuing a Ph.D. in Occupational Health and Safety, Tommy wanted to make a significant impact in the EHS profession by trying to prevent the most common causes of accidents and injuries both at work and at home.
To accomplish this task, he created the Rebecchi Individual Safety Consciousness (R.I.S.C.) Assessment, a qualitative and quantitative psychometric evaluation that is the culmination of over a decade of knowledge, 2 years of dedication, and over 2,000 hours of research, consultation, and development. With the Assessment, Tommy hopes to teach each participant how to identify, avoid, and properly manage hazardous situations to prevent unnecessary accidents and injuries that can have major negative impacts on a person’s life.
In addition to the R.I.S.C. Assessment, Tommy is also focused on improving other aspects within the EHS profession to help safety reach the next stage in its evolution. These efforts include but are not limited to improving individual hazard awareness, restructuring training to maximize retention, presenting information in a more realistic yet entertaining format, developing new strategies and solutions to persistent issues facing current and future safety professionals, and discussing important topics in health and safety that rarely (if ever) get attention. Through hard work and dedication, Tommy hopes to have a long-lasting impact on safety and to leave the profession better than he found it.
The best person to keep you safe is you, and the best way to do that is to improve your ability to understand and identify hazardous conditions. Knowledge is power, and the R.I.S.C. Assessment will tell you not only what types of accidents and injuries you are most likely to experience but will also give you the information you need to avoid them. People have asked, “Where has this tool been,” and “Why didn’t we have this sooner?” The real question is, “Now that you have it, how will you use it?” Take the R.I.S.C. Assessment today, and let’s work together to make you the safety expert.
