John's Blog

Aligning Policies and Procedures: Why "My Policies Don’t Match the Procedures on the Ground" is a Red Flag for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses In the world of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), owners juggle countless priorities—sales, operations, customer relations, and compliance, to name a few.  In the hustle of running a business, many overlook one crucial aspect: ensuring that their policies match the procedures carried out daily. As a safety consultant, I wish I had a quarter for every time a business owner or a manager said that the work they do is very different from the policies on file. This is concerning for many reasons.  This disconnect puts the business owner at risk and has an effect on operational efficiency, posing severe operational, legal, and financial risks. Although this issue is particularly obvious around safety management, where the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), 85 of 1993 , requires a thorough alignment between safety policies...

Seething anger and the sickening feeling of helplessness! The two emotions that hijacked victims must overcome in order to move forward in life. This article is not about the potentially lethal car hijacking. Although this form is very rife in my country, this article is about a less dangerous form of hijacking, but no less invasive.