Complacency is Nobody's Friend!

By Heather L. Fredenburg
Training and Risk Management Supervisor
McNeil & Company

October 2014

Complacency in the workforce, injures and kills. Not only that, it spreads like a disease from one person to another. You can’t afford to let complacency take over your workplace. You don’t want to allow the mentality of “If he or she can do it, why can’t I?”

You are content at work, you are comfortable with your colleagues, and your supervisor, and the company. If you truly enjoy what you do, why would you even consider pushing yourself out of your comfort zone?

The risk is that being too complacent can derail you in life.
Complacency causes many problems, but the greatest or worst is that it can lead to your mind not being on task. In any career, you want to make yourself as highly valuable as possible. With industries constantly changing, the importance of continuing education and training is crucial for entry level personnel to management and to supervisory levels.

Continuing education can help you stay current with the latest developments, skills, and new technologies required in your field. Most importantly, training and continuing education keeps you focused and can ensure your safety and the safety of those around you.

I recently read that occupational developments, techniques, technologies, and knowledge evolve to the point that every 10 -15 years, a person is only half competent to do his or her job. How would that impact you? What do you do to maintain or regain competence?

Continual training is essential to ensure knowledge and skills are up-to-date with the latest trends affecting a person’s career field. The benefit for a person continuing their education in this manner is their employer is more likely to view them as a valuable asset during downsizing or layoffs. Do you want to be that person at work that has the feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better on any level?

Continuing education or life-long learning as some people call it, is necessary as many professions require continuing education to comply with laws, remain licensed or certified, or maintain membership in an association or licensing body.

A strong commitment to training and awareness will help create a safety culture that can target and wipe out complacency, replacing it with critical thinking skills. A culture of learning will help to enhance quality of life, and can assist you in serving an ever-changing, multicultural society.

Ask yourself these two simple questions: