12/17/2025
Have you heard of December Complacency?
What drives it:
▪️Mental distraction: Holidays, year-end deadlines, family obligations, travel planning.
▪️Routine bias: “I’ve done this all year without incident” thinking.
▪️Time pressure: Crews rushing to finish projects before shutdowns or holidays.
▪️Staffing changes: Absences, temporary workers, unfamiliar task assignments.
▪️Seasonal conditions: Cold, ice, reduced daylight—risks feel familiar, so they’re underestimated.
How it shows up
▪️Skipped or rushed pre-job inspections
▪️PPE shortcuts (“just this once”)
▪️Increased slips, trips, and falls
▪️More minor injuries and near-misses
▪️Reduced reporting and weaker hazard assessments
Countermeasures that actually work
▪️Short, focused safety moments (not long meetings)
▪️Explicitly calling out “December risk factors”
▪️Slowing down critical tasks rather than pushing productivity
▪️Supervisors modeling visible caution
▪️Treating year-end work as higher risk, not lower
Data from occupational safety research consistently shows incident rates increase in late Q4, even in otherwise strong safety cultures—classic complacency plus distraction.
Finish the year the same way it started - Focused!
