Kevin Burns Blog

If you want to improve safety meetings, you have to improve the level of respect you have for your people first. Mark Cuban, television personality and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks once said, “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” He might be onto something there. Safety people would make a bigger effort if they got paid for the quality of their safety meetings. But that’s not happening anytime soon. So, for now, you will have to accept that safety meetings are notorious time killers. They usually start late, discuss too many topics, and end up running long. Poor planning combined with poor presentation skills make them difficult to endure. If your people can’t wait to attend the next safety meeting, and are excited when it’s meeting day, then you’re doing it right. But that’s not you is it? So how about you invest a few minutes and give some consideration to some new ideas. Like a good safety meeting, it’ll be short and to the point. Here are three simple ideas that can transform your safety meetings from boring to engaging - and build respect:

Your people want and deserve a blueprint for success in safety - something more than rules and procedures. Safety buy-in happens when employees figure out what they gain, not what they could lose. You don't buy-in to a financial plan, a healthy lifestyle or a good education to avoid what you might lose. You look for your wins. Instead of reminding workers of what they might lose if they don't comply, safety should show people how life is better because of it.

You cannot just think of yourself as a quality safety leader and employ low-quality tactics for the safety of your crew. An employee not engaged in their work; who mindlessly goes through the motions of their work does not buy-into safety. Gallup says that over 70% of employees in North America are not fully engaged in their work. That spells trouble for safety performance. Safety managers and supervisors, engagement just became your problem. Supervisors and safety managers must participate in management and coaching training courses now. A supervisor or manager who can't help an employee engage in safety is also a job-hazard. Front-line supervisors and safety people set the tone of “how we do things ‘round here.” They also set the tone of how we safely do things ‘round here. They also influence respect and trust among crew members. Anyone in a position of influence must embrace that responsibility.

Change the perception from HAVING to attend safety meetings, to WANTING to. Nowhere in the Occupational Health and Safety Code does it state that a safety meeting has to be enjoyable. But what if the requirement was that safety meetings had to be engaging? What if that was written into the Code that you could be fined or jailed if you did not engage your people in safety meetings? Would you finally stop the archaic, mind-numbing practices of lousy safety meetings? Would you, instead, spend some time raising the standards of the meeting? There are standards for working at height, with dangerous goods, in pits, underground. You are required to ensure that employees understand and comply with these standards. But, where are the standards for holding engaging, uplifting safety meetings? Does there have to be a law passed before you will do it? You claim to want to have a workplace with a strong safety culture. But you continue to turn your safety meetings into dull, half-hearted events. Safety meetings are a key rallying point of your culture. If you want to build safety buy-in, you’ve got to utilize your safety meetings as a key tool to do that. Here are three ways you can use your safety meetings to build buy-in:

Could workforce disengagement levels be a contributing factor to ineffective safety meetings? Safety is the only department in an organization that has a legal requirement to hold meetings. No other department is legislated to meet. Meanwhile, there is no OH&S requirement to make safety meetings boring, disengaging, frustrating or ambiguous. That is done voluntarily. Having attended hundreds of safety meetings in the last ten years or so, my anecdotal observations have noted: five percent of safety meetings could be considered highly-effective and engaging twenty-five percent of meetings are pointed in the right direction with some adjustment needed to make them more effective seventy percent of safety meetings could be considered ineffective and in need of an overhaul Coincidentally enough, Gallup reports 70% disengagement levels across the North American workforce. Is there a correlation? Could disengagement be a contributing factor to ineffective safety meetings?

When you tweak job performance in small chunks, little by little, safety performance improves. What do safety supervisors have in common with radio disc-jockeys? More than is obvious. Turn on the radio any time and listen to the radio announcers. Really study what they do. Radio is a cut-throat game that depends on ratings. Take a tumble in the ratings and a DJ can start looking for another job. To stay on top of the ratings requires constant monitoring and improvement. That means weekly airchecks. Airchecks are one-on-one meetings with the program director; the announcer’s supervisor. The supervisor “checks” the recordings from the announcer’s “on-air” performance. Hence the name... aircheck.

People-View is how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs. “Keep it simple and as short as possible. These guys don’t want a lot of information and they won’t remember most of it anyway. And don’t make it too complex or it’ll go right over their heads. And don’t give them too many breaks or they’ll take their time coming back. Some of them might even take off from the meeting. You can’t trust them. They’ll take a shortcut if they can find one.” Is that the people view for your crew? Is this how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs? Is that what you would say to an outside speaker or guest getting ready to address your people? People view is how you view people - specifically your people, your co-workers. People view is the predetermined opinions you have about either the people you work with or those you do business with. That includes job site contractors and subcontractors.

Instead of focusing on negative outcomes, re-frame communications to be more positive in safety. Safety, like any other message or idea, needs to be marketed to employees. Safety needs reminding. The more a safety message is repeated, the more employees become comfortable with the message. The overwhelming focus of safety marketing in past has been wrong. Scare tactics, sad stories and data charts do not provide inspiration or motivation to buy-in to safety. They create fear and accident avoidance. That's a short-term result that needs to be constantly fed and reinforced. Safety is focused on achieving compliance instead of developing an affinity with personal values. A cop at the side of the highway causes short-term compliance. Values alignment creates safety buy-in so that cops become unnecessary. Instead of focusing on negative outcomes, re-frame communications to be more positive in safety.

Front-line supervisors need to understand that perhaps the most important position in an organization is at the front line. Out-of-work safety supervisor numbers are growing - especially in the energy sector. Layoffs are plentiful and competition for what few jobs there are is fierce. What’s a supervisor to do? As hard as it is to not worry about how long the slump in oil is going to last, now is a perfect time to up your game. Taking the time to add to your skill-set shows character in the face of adversity. It also demonstrates your willingness to do whatever is necessary to get the job done. You demonstrate that you're willing to improve your performance when no one is paying you. Those are the traits of good leaders - not that of a nine-to-fiver. It shows your attitude and value. When things are busy and the work is plentiful, there is never enough time (or stamina) to add to the workload by updating skills or re-tooling. But when it’s slow and jobs are few, many people will be competing for the same jobs. Being a middle-of-the-pack performer won’t get you noticed or working anytime soon. You have to bring something to the table that no one else has. Now is the time to tool-up and get the skills that will set you apart from everyone else.