Kevin Burns Blog

Safety Managers Don't Need To Be Smart

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Employees don’t want your smartest person to run the safety program. They want the one with the best leadership skills. Historically, Google has been the catalyst of many changes in how we view and access the knowledge of the world. But it was in 2009, in a study that Google did internally in an effort to develop better managers, that they made a finding that every single safety manager should be paying attention to.

4 Traits Of The Effective Safety Leader

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

If you’re handling crisis after crisis, you’re not leading your safety program - it is leading you. You might be in charge, but you’re not in command. You’ve seen it: construction material plastics and debris flying through the air in high winds or caught in the protective fencing because the garbage bin was overstuffed. A disorganized, garbage-strewn work site is indicative of two things; apathy of construction site management and a poor safety culture from workers. But question a site manager on why there’s so much garbage, and you’ll hear that there are other crises to deal with.

4 Lessons The Olympics Teach To Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

To keep safety top-of-mind, appeal to employees like television networks do during the Olympics. The Olympics are on. I find it difficult to get any work done during the Olympics because I’m an Olympics junkie. Once I’ve cleared off my desk for the day, it’s to the big chair, remote in hands to jump back and forth between the almost dozen channels that feature Olympic coverage.

How Dumb Workers Improve Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Just when you think you’ve sanitized your workplace, some joker finds something you overlooked in safety. I travel all over North America speaking at safety meetings. I wander through a lot of airports, stay in a lot of hotels and eat in a lot of restaurants. I’ve gotten pretty good at traveling. It doesn’t bother me much. My favorite, though, is driving into the rural parts of this great continent.

Are You Running Safety Meetings Like A One-Room Schoolhouse?

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Safety meetings have the tendency to be a one-room schoolhouse: too many subjects all at once. I have been the featured keynote speaker at a lot of safety meetings over my twenty years in safety management consulting. I have witnessed some meetings that created incredible focus for attendees and other meetings that were attention-deficit disasters. In safety meetings, it’s not uncommon to see 18 year-old first-time workers sitting alongside 3-more-months-until-retirement seasoned veterans - very similar to the one-room schoolhouses of old. Children of all ages would gathered under one roof to be taught by one teacher across all learning levels.

Shorten Safety Meeting Presentations

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Safety meetings are NOT about filling time. They are about ensuring that you engage your attendees in safety and help them to make better choices. (An excerpt from my free e-book, The Perfect Safety Meeting)

4 Reasons Compliance Ignores Safety Attitude

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Safety attitude doesn’t come from compliance. Safety attitude comes from aligning the safety program with a worker's personal values. After delivering a safety keynote presentation, I spotted a driver in treacherous, icy winter driving conditions fly through a yellow light with vehicle windows, side mirrors and tail lights completely obscured by snow. Upon parking, the driver, a construction worker, emerged from his vehicle in full PPE prepared for a full day of working safely.

10 Things Safety Is Not

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Safety is not a discussion of logic. People don’t choose to be unsafe logically. They do it illogically. I got my start as a professional speaker very early on. I entered radio when I was fourteen years old; my father owned a small-town radio station. Some refer to radio as the media. But radio is only a part of media as is television, newspaper, bus benches, billboards, Yellow Pages and on the list goes.

Safety Meeting Video As Insurance

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Video creates a public record of your safety meeting, aids investigations, removes ambiguity and makes a safety meeting rock solid. Last week, while preparing to deliver a safety keynote presentation, I was testing the rented cordless lapel microphone at a community hall. My client was hosting their Safety Awards Banquet that night, and I had been chosen as the keynote speaker. The HSE Manager suggested that perhaps they should buy a microphone system like the one I was testing because it was so compact. It would allow them to have some flexibility in their safety meetings by not always having to seek out a vendor to rent A/V equipment from.

Why Courtesy Improves Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

If you can get your people to be courteous to each other, you can get them to improve safety at the same time. My travel takes me to the four corners of the North American continent as a safety attitude and safety management speaker. I get to witness, first-hand, some of the best and some of the worst safety behaviors - but none more prevalent than that of drivers.

Leadership for frontline industrial supervisors.

Safety Managers Don't Need To Be Smart

4 Traits Of The Effective Safety Leader

4 Lessons The Olympics Teach To Safety

How Dumb Workers Improve Safety

Are You Running Safety Meetings Like A One-Room Schoolhouse?

Shorten Safety Meeting Presentations

4 Reasons Compliance Ignores Safety Attitude

10 Things Safety Is Not

Safety Meeting Video As Insurance

Why Courtesy Improves Safety

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