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

Have you fallen into the trap of making statements instead of asking questions?

Selling safety to crews can seem overwhelming. Getting your people to see and understand what you see and understand can be frustrating, especially when you don’t achieve the success you think you should have.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, safety marketing, selling safety, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety message, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety mindset, safety teamwork

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

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

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

Effective workplaces are those places where employees feel valued, cared for and protected.

Without getting into long descriptions, good workplace safety culture is the result of attitudes and personal and corporate values aligning. If apathy in the workplace exists, little care will be given to safety. When the quality of the work is “good enough,” apathy in safety exists. If employees think it's a lousy place to work, then safety will take a back seat. Poor safety attitudes will impede becoming a top performer. That reflects in both safety and financial performance. A broken safety culture will have an impact on overall corporate performance.

Topics: safety leadership, kevin burns, safety marketing, proactive safety, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety engagement, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork, safety responsibility

What if instead of guilt and fear and manipulation tactics, you simply cared?

When you really think about it, there are only two main ways to get people to join in your safety program and for them to buy-in to the idea of safety: you can either manipulate or inspire. Either you pull on the heartstrings to try to guilt them into following rules, or you help them flip that internal switch that kicks-in their motivation and fires up their personal leadership capacity. Before you decide, know this: manipulation does not create leaders.

Topics: safety leadership, safety marketing, safety values, 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

Focus on the plan to improve the things you're not already doing. Not the goal.

Once upon a time, in the mid-90’s, I was working in a sales job. At the start of each month, our sales manager would assemble all the sales reps in a room and ask each of us for our specific sales goal for the month. He wasn't asking us what our plan was to make more sales. He was asking for a number.

Topics: safety speaker, safety leadership, kevin burns, safety culture, workplace safety speaker, safety consulting, safety marketing, proactive safety, safety communications, safety effectiveness, safety message, m4 method, safety motivation, peoplework, safety complacency, safety moment, safety mindset, accelerate safety, safety teamwork