PeopleWork BlogTips and strategies to help you align the people you employ, to build more leaders, to communicate more effectively all while looking out for each other and keeping each other safe.

You may cover the check-boxes but you need to ensure employees are going to give safety their attention and focus.

Is yours a check-box safety culture? Or a check-in safety culture? What’s the difference? A check-box safety culture is just what the name implies. You go through the checklists and check off the items that you have completed.

Topics: safety speaker, safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety marketing, safety compliance, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety engagement, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, safety teamwork, kevin burns safety videos

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety buy-in, safety marketing, selling safety, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety engagement, m4 method, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, kevin burns safety videos

You need to connect with employees in driving the things that are important to them.

You feel like you’re saying the right things in safety. Some days your safety performance is great. Other days, you wonder if your team was listening at all. And it frustrates you that just when you seem to be making steps forward, a dumb little incident shows up.

This is where you can change it up.

You need a safety message that resonates, at the right time, saying the right thing so that every employee is working toward common goals in safety. And the goals are not numbers. Stop pitching numbers to your people. Numbers don’t inspire better performance.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety buy-in, safety communications, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

Asking people to think safety doesn’t help; it makes the frustration feel worse.

What part of safety do you want to fix? You will have a problem answering that question specifically. It will frustrate you that you cannot seem to articulate the exact part of safety that you want to fix. And if you feel some frustration, you will better understand why your people have a difficult time also fixing safety, or even rallying around it.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety buy-in, safety marketing, safety values, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

By implementing an internal marketing strategy for safety, employees are treated as critical stakeholders who must be convinced of a company's safety vision.

To get employees to buy-in to safety, you need a consistent and compelling message that resonates with your people. And, to be clear, a compelling message is not some safety slogan you downloaded from the Internet. Don’t just take something you think is clever that someone else came up with and turn it into posters all over your workplace. You’ve got to understand what resonates with your team.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety promotion, safety culture, safety buy-in, safety marketing, selling safety, safety values, safety communications, marketing, safety effectiveness, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, kevin burns safety videos

You need the right message, at the right time, to the right people so that every employee is working toward common goals in safety.

You’re planning a safety stand-down, safety event, safety day, whatever you want to call it. I’ll stick with stand-down. So, you’ve set aside your dates, got a budget from your senior managers and you’re busy making plans for what you are going to do for your stand-down. Now, before you plan any further, I want to pass along some advice that will make your stand-down be much more effective.

Topics: safety leadership, safety stand-down, safety culture, safety buy-in, safety marketing, selling safety, safety communications, safety effectiveness, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

You have got to set aside time each day for your own tools and skills development.

Let’s start by saying that I have dedicated plenty of space to identifying the “traits of safety leaders” in past Blog posts. And as important as the traits of safety leaders are, the tools they use to develop those traits is even more important.

Good safety leaders are respected. And safety leaders understand the simple premise that “staff don’t work for you, you work for them.” The point of leadership is to help other grow. So when we see inexperienced or even wrong-thinking supervisors flexing their authority muscles at employees, you wonder how long a disliked and disrespected supervisor or safety person is going to last?

Employees want to have a reason to respect the supervisor and the safety person. And, even though that supervisor might now have a lot of experience, employees will respect a supervisor who admits that they are working on it.

Topics: safety leadership, safety culture, safety values, safety communications, positive safety,, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, safety respect, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

What employees want from the job can change your culture.

In my last post (When Employees Don't Give You Safety Performance), I presented an overview of what employees want from their supervisors and immediate managers. This time around, we are going to take a look at what employees want from their jobs. Because if they don’t get what they want from their job, why would you expect them to give their best effort, especially in safety?

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety management, safety marketing, proactive safety, safety communications, safety supervisor, positive safety,, safety commitment, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

If they’re not giving you safety, it’s because you’re not giving them what they want.

To paraphrase a quote, the secret to getting what you want is to help enough other people get what they want. Zig Ziglar said that. He wasn’t wrong. Help enough other people get a win for themselves and they are more likely to help you get your win.

Topics: safety attitude, safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety consulting, proactive safety, safety communications, safety supervisor, positive safety,, safety effectiveness, safety commitment, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos

Your job isn’t to enforce the rules as much as it is to build your team’s performance within the rules.

Top down. That’s how your safety program has probably always been handled. Everything rolls down from the front-office to the front-line.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety compliance, safety communications, safety supervisor, positive safety,, safety effectiveness, safety commitment, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility, kevin burns safety videos