Why Safety Fails When People Fail to Speak Up

Dec 02, 2025

Hello and welcome to this edition of Safety Pro Weekly.

On March 23, 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a Texas oil refinery during the startup of an isomerization unit, killing 15 workers and injuring 180.

It was one of the worst industrial disasters in US history.

After several investigations of the incident and others at the same refinery, some serious safety culture failures were identified as contributing causes:

Workers recognized serious hazards and near misses were frequent, but did not feel safe reporting them.
They believed raising concerns would lead to blame or retaliation.
The culture rewarded “getting it done” and budget compliance as the most important factors.
Management had ignored or dismissed past warnings.

While this was an extremely tragic example, this pattern can be seen on a smaller scale in many workplaces.

Let’s take a look at some of the mistakes that can lead to these types of conditions, why they happen, and what you can do about it.

The Bridge Between Psychological Safety and Physical Safety

This incident is a clear example of how psychological safety (the comfort level that employees have to voice their opinions and speak their minds without fear of negative consequences) can directly influence physical safety in the workplace. A lack of psychological safety creates real physical danger when:

Workers stay silent about hazards, near-misses, or unsafe conditions they might otherwise have raised.
“Silent workplaces” develop invisible risk: problems nobody mentions until an incident forces the truth into the open.
Leaders believe the lack of incident reporting is a “no news is good news” situation. Instead, it usually means people are afraid, disengaged, or don’t believe speaking up will lead to action.

Why It Happens

So with this in mind, why wouldn’t a worker speak up when they see a danger in the workplace? It seems a no brainer that raising a hazard concern would lead to a safer workplace, right?

Often it’s one of the following:

Fear of consequences. Discipline, blame, being labelled as “the difficult one” can be powerful disincentives for sticking your neck out. People often worry more about interpersonal risk (not wanting to be ostracized) than physical risk.
Past experience. If past warnings have been ignored, workers often feel there’s no point in speaking up.
Cultural norms. “Don’t snitch,” “Just get it done” “We were too busy”. If this is the dominant mindset in your workplace, your incident rate is likely higher than normal.
Workload pressure. Busyness and pressure are the greatest cause of employees taking shortcuts or skipping procedures such as pre-shift inspections.
Leaders unintentionally shutting down discussion. A leader’s reactions, tone, or dismissiveness can easily and unintentionally dissuade workers from speaking up. Belittling employee’s concerns is a sure way to choke the lines of communication.

How to Fix It

There is no quick fix to changing workplace safety culture, but there are small steps and actions you can model on a daily basis to influence things in a positive direction.

Model curiosity. Leaders who believe that they know it all are not likely to encourage alternative views. Ask open-ended questions daily and be willing to listen to and fully consider the responses.
Reward speaking up publicly. This needn’t be a monetary reward. A little recognition goes a long way.
Respond constructively. Thank the person for raising the concern. Take action in a timely fashion and follow up to ensure completion.
Use micro-openings. Stay in touch with your team via quick verbal safety check-ins during shifts.
Make hazard reporting easy. Are your workers going to report many hazards if it requires a 16 page report and a 60 minute interview with HR? Not bloody likely. Instead, use simple forms, QR codes, or verbal processes.
Train leaders to manage first reactions. This takes a bit of practice, especially when deadlines are tight, but the way leaders respond to feedback makes a huge difference. Do your best to be welcoming and present when receiving feedback, even (especially?) when you don’t feel like it.
Share lessons learned. Take every opportunity to show that reporting leads to real change. Highlight a hazards that someone has reported and gotten fixed at team meetings, present findings and wins to management, shout it from the rooftops if you have to. The more you demonstrate that leadership takes hazard reports seriously and does something about it, the more comfortable workers will be to speak up when it matters.