Kevin Burns Blog

Here are 7 changes you must make immediately to begin to shift away from a negative-based approach to safety. The headline to this post is negative. Stop, never or don’t are not positive. Telling people what not to do isn’t a plan for positive action because it’s not a complete set of instructions. It’s like scolding. It’s easy to point out what not to do. A successful trip to the grocery store doesn’t include a list of what not to buy. Focusing on what-not-to-do is not a blueprint to safety success.

Like conferences, safety meetings should inspire people to want to be safe in future - not scold them for not being safe in the past. I have received several notices this week of upcoming safety conferences across North America. In fact, I am proud to be speaking at a couple of them: Workplace Safety North and Safety Services Nova Scotia.

To inspire your people to buy-in to safety, you must make safety inspiring. “If you want to your safety program to run like a well-oiled machine, consider your people as “moving parts.” Parts need maintenance for best performance. Coach, communicate and inspire their best. It’s safety after all.” - Kevin Burns

Flippant answers must stop immediately. Dismissing concerns as unimportant, disengages people from the job and safety. “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The biggest issue uncovered is poor communication. Safety managers are concerned that employees will lose respect because of their communications skills. Having mission and values statements are useless without communication. Building and authoring a safety program is useless without communication to tell others what is in it. Safety certification is useless without communication skills to pass along what they know.

When apathy and mediocrity run rampant, morale hovers near rock bottom - right next to safety. 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. When apathy and mediocrity run rampant, morale hovers near rock bottom - right next to safety. When attitudes suck, good luck being a top performer - either in safety or financial performance. Hence, you have a broken safety culture.

Here are the five most important things you need to know about being effective in your safety position. The term safety manager refers to anyone responsible for providing direction in safety. If they are managing or supervising or overseeing the safety program in any way, they are safety managers. I am not referring to your title.

In every profession, there are good and bad performers. Safety is no different. In a LinkedIn post recently, I wrote, “There will always be employment for good leaders. Safety leaders will always have options. That means security for their families and themselves.”

The new management reality: staff don’t work for managers - managers work for staff. There are 5 constants in life: death, taxes, change, Greek folk-songs speed up, and people make decisions that compromise safety. That last constant impacts the first one too often. That impacts the second (taxes/premiums) and creates more of the third, change. I haven’t figured out where the fourth one sits in the scheme of things.

Here are the three steps to take employee focus off of money and put it back onto safety To a union audience at a workshop, I asked the question, “Why do you work safely?” The answers varied from, "it’s the right thing to do" to "money talks."