A Coffee Break To Becoming A More Effective Safety Leader
Small, incremental improvements to the safety program are not as noticeable and do not expose employees to undue stress.
Every job has its ups and downs. Employees can feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of responsibility and workload. Then add in paperwork, Job Hazard Assessments, new OH&S guidelines, new reporting as part of the corporate re-focus on safety and you have a workforce that can feel stressed. Responsibility can be demanding. But taking a coffee break of fifteen minutes per day to self-improve can reduce stress and feelings of being overwhelmed.
The Japanese Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement can be a safety manager’s best ally. Kaizen teaches companies to make small, incremental and achievable improvements each day over a long period of time in an effort to gently stretch the abilities of their workers in such a way as to not disturb the delicate balance of productivity and skill. Small, incremental improvements are made so as not to feel noticeable and to not expose employees to undue stress.
Stop Being A Big Dumbell
Adding thirty pounds to a free-weights workout at the gym in a single day is tough and that much additional weight overstresses the muscle suddenly. Muscles cramp and freeze up when overstressed. Instead, adding a single pound to a workout each day over thirty days is hardly noticeable and allows the muscle to gradually adapt instead of shocking it all at once. Employees respond in a like manner. Those new ideas and strategies that are introduced over longer periods of time in small increments have a higher likelihood of taking root than large-scale, overnight introductions of new processes and procedures.
Requiring an employee or a manager to learn, assimilate and adopt a whole new series of processes and procedures from one day-long session of classes will end in disappointment. Expecting anyone, seasoned or novice, to have retained all of the learning in a single day and to be able to implement all of the learning the very next day is delusional. Large-scale changes are met with resistance at all levels of an organization. However, learning in fifteen-minute segments over a 30-day period would be easier to retain and thus easier to effectively implement the learning.
Crack the Books, Not The Whip
In an eight-hour workday, a 15-minute coffee break translates into roughly 3% of the day (14.4 minutes is exactly 3%). If you were to take 15 minutes (one coffee break) per day to learn something that made you a better communicator, motivator, mentor or leader in safety, you would put yourself in a position to be more effective all around. When daily learning is done in small increments, it is easier to implement.
Fifteen minutes per day of self-learning can improve safety leadership skills and make work participation and perception better. The more you improve yourself, the more you improve critical thinking. Improve critical thinking and decision-making capacity improves. Better decision-making brings improved results. When results improve, circumstances improve. The key to improving circumstances in safety leadership is to improve yourself.
Don't Be Dull And Boring Like The Safety Manual
It is not the safety manual that inspires workers to want to be better. It’s the person who epitomizes safety leadership and who inspires others to make better choices that makes them better safety performers. This is a key role for every safety manager and safety supervisor.
Effective leaders become attractive to not only their own higher-ups and senior managers but to the senior managers of other companies. The better any employee gets as a safety leader, the more opportunities are likely to unfold.
The Safety Program Is Only As Good As The Person Running It
Business gets better when the people IN the business get better. Safety gets better when the people involved in safety get better. No business gets better overnight. No safety record improves overnight.
Safety managers and safety supervisors must make the effort each day to develop their own Safety Leadership skills: skills that inspire, demonstrate to and affect the lives of others. Improved safety leadership also adds to a consistency of message and consistency of example. The longer you do it, the more that continuous improvement becomes a regular habit. That makes you a better safety leader in the long run.
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Now that you've voted, here's a great self-test to see where you might use a little help. Download the free e-book 10 Crucial Questions For Safety Managers.
