Beyond Compliance: How HR Can Help Build a Best-in-Class Safety Culture

The final count in the Triangle Fire was 146 lives lost.

On March 25, 1911, just about at quitting time, the young women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York’s garment district were packing up their belongings for the day. A fire flared up in a scrap bin— believed to be caused by the careless disposal of a cigarette. Twenty minutes later 146 people had died as a result of the inferno on the eighth floor.

Why? The doors to the factory had been locked by management to prevent theft, the...