Posters that announce how many accident-free days the company has had tell plenty about the company's safety focus: employees.
Employees are seen to be the torch bearers of safety for the organization. Employees are seen as the change agents for organizational safety. There may be placards outside an employer's plant or building, professing, 'Zero Accidents' as a goal. But that is, in fact, a non-goal. It doesn't identify what the company is striving to achieve. Zero accidents may be a side effect of an effective safety system or culture. But a directive needs to be actionable.
Quite frankly, having accidents revealed, carefully examined and then generously shared is a key method of prevention, so that the error is well understood, and not repeated. It is unhealthy to have a safety incentive purely based on driving down numbers. It can have a negative impact on people who experience injuries, creating peer pressure not to report, and to hide accidents from management. As a matter of fact, OSHA penalizes such safety incentive programs.
Individual employees actually have the least impact on overall safety culture. They are a component of a sound safety program, but they are only as effective as the culture itself, which is driven from the top down. In truth, many organizations view safety training as the process by which new hires are given basic training for the job. Yet conditions on the job often vary greatly from the expected safety standards. Managers may reluctantly tolerate cutting corners in order to meet productivity demands. Sacred-cow departments or tasks run autonomously without much corporate intervention. Supervisors, minus upper management feedback, do their best to straddle the line between profit and safety. Everybody may be lose sight of the fact that safety IS a quality issue.
Where Safety Gets Lost
That happens when organizations give lip service to safety. Often, companies will say they embrace safety, but really neglect it, and embrace production and profitability first. Safety, while still important, becomes a siloed, secondary concern that many employers, much to their own detriment, consider a compliance issue.
That sends a very definite signal to your employees - safety is that thing we must do when someone important is watching, not a process that we integrate into our culture. Without accountability, without a consistent focus on safety and an eye toward improving results, the message is lost. So too is the remedy. When accidents happen, the employer's immediate reaction is to implement more training or retraining for the employee. However, the answer should rarely be retraining. Too often, the root cause is identified as 'employee carelessness.' But that is not the root cause. If an accident happens because of a careless employee, then why is this? Does the organization hire and consistently give feedback to maintain careless employees? Most, if not all accidents, are the result of a systemic organizational error that causes the unsafe condition.
Instead, companies should be looking at their processes. In most cases we have been involved with, accidents tend to come from two areas: hiring and training, and supervision.
Hiring and Training
Hiring processes may not be vetting new hires properly.
- Do candidates have a good work ethic?
- Do candidates exhibit citizenship behaviors, like cooperation, friendliness, offering help without being asked?
- Are they self-motivated to clean up, organize, fix things, help out when it may not be specifically within their job duties?
- Do they have a do they believe they have significant influence over what happens to them and the outcomes in their lives? Or do they think what they do doesn't have any impact on outcomes, and bad luck just happens?
- Are they capable to do the job, do they need accommodations, can you provide them reasonably?
- Do candidates have the appropriate skills to perform the tasks assigned?
- Do the candidates fit the culture?
- What are their views on safety?
A comprehensive hiring process can help you determine if the candidate is able to work safely. If hiring is not the issue, training could be.
- Does the training program cover all aspects of the employees' job?
- Is the program itself good enough? Is it hands-on? Demonstrations? Are there hands-on tests?
- Are results being measured and discussed with employees (not just once, but periodically)?
Even if training and hiring are executed exceptionally well, however, there are further potential safety pitfalls to watch out for. What more do your employees need in order to work safely?
Supervision
Perhaps the answer lies in how your employees are supervised.
- Do your supervisors and managers follow appropriate safety measures? Do they know what those measures are?
- Have they undergone refresher training regularly?
- Are you communicating with them to understand how productivity goals are impacting safety?
- Are managers and supervisors truly held accountable, consistently, for safe performance? Is this a meaningful part of their job performance evaluation?
Set expectations for safety. Establish accountability, but not just at the managerial level. Upper management too should be accountable for safety throughout the organization. That accountability should not be relegated to a designated safety manager. One person in an organization cannot possibly responsible for safety, nor could it work that way. Safety is truly everyone's responsibility no matter what role one plays in the organization. Top leadership and upper management drive this process.
Going Forward Safely
Empower employees to be involved in safety. Reward them for doing the job safely - give them the tools and time necessary to maintain safe operations. Reward them for sharing the slightest insights, a minor near-miss, an observation. Provide positive reinforcement, meaning, give kudos for behaviors you want to continue seeing. And then, for every 4 - 5 positive exchanges, you can afford to provide a critical coaching with a good acceptance rate. If anyone only hears negatives, they shut down and hear nothing.
A successful safety culture is a top-down process. It starts at the top and flows from senior leadership through to the mid-level managers. If implemented and managed correctly, your employees will be engaged and empowered to take action on their own. There is always a weak link in this chain. Always be on the look-out for this weak link, and continually work to strengthen it. It is incumbent on management to lay the groundwork for safety, and to ensure that employees have the tools, resources and time necessary to get the job done in a safe manner. The reward: a safer workplace, better morale and productivity, fewer accidents, high compliance, and reduced costs and time lost. Reach out today to start a conversation about how we can work together to move you forward.
Additional Resources
Case Study | Occupational Health & Safety: Building Materials Supplier
EV Battery Manufacturing Safety
Case Study | Occupational Health & Safety: Industrial Products Manufacturer