Kevin Burns Blog

Solid and effective safety leaders make people proud of who they work with and inspire them to want to be better. I watched a firefighter tear up at being called a hero this week. Then, he displayed class and leadership in his response. And I was captivated and engaged and proud … and I don’t even know him. The Fort McMurray wildfire brought out the best in so many. It continues to do so. Captain Adam Budgen of the Fort McMurray Fire Department, after being asked in a TV interview about how he feels about being called a hero, responded to the question. “I don’t consider myself a hero. But I’ve met more heroes in this experience than I ever thought existed. (Pause to wipe his eyes) Our community right now has more firefighters and more first responders, police, everybody, that have given up their own homes (in other communities) that are safe, their own families that are waiting for them, to come up (to Fort McMurray) in the middle of this beast to help protect my home. They’re heroes to me. (Pause to wipe his eyes) Everybody I work with has been holding me up and I’ve been holding them up. So I am in the company of heroes.” There are just some inspiring moments in the deepest, darkest adversity. That thirty-seconds of sound bite provided reflection. There are three compelling things that leaders, including safety leaders, do to get results:

Communication gets better when your intentions for communication become clearer. Clear, concise safety communication is critical to front-line crews and employees. As a supervisor or safety person, you need to be fully understood in your communication. There’s no room for ambiguity. There can be no doubt about what you’re trying to say and what you want them to do next. Too many supervisors ascend to their positions because they’ve been on the job the longest. It's not because of their communication skills. There is no direct connection between tenure (seniority) and communication. In fact, the longer you’re in the job, the more you assume others already know what they should know. Safety people and supervisors are not required to have any schooling in either communications or management skills. But the biggest part of the job is communicating, right? Let’s re-frame communications in a way that helps front-line supervisors and safety people. Let’s improve communications. Here are three questions that are designed to streamline your communications effectively in safety:

Front-line employees can have leadership abilities without having a title. Call it a pet peeve but please stop using the word leadership to describe management. We have all worked for a manager who had no leadership skills. You don’t call those people your leader. You call them your boss. Leadership and management have little to do with each other. Besides, front-line employees can have leadership abilities too - without having a title. You don’t have to be in management to be a leader. Besides, peer-leadership is sometimes far more effective when it comes to getting fellow employees to safety-up. Positive safety peer-pressure can make work-sites more safety-conscious than management intervention. Safety certification and titles don’t make you a leader. Position doesn’t make you a leader. That’s good news for front-line employees. There’s no monopoly on leadership. Employees can be leaders just as easily as anyone else. It's influence, demeanor, conscientiousness and selflessness that makes leaders. Leadership is a mindset - how you approach your role in the world. Leadership, natural leadership, doesn’t need courses or schooling. Leadership is not something you get in exchange for money. Employees make decisions daily that are either in alignment or out of alignment with the safety program. You can be a leader in your own life in safety - or you can take your orders from the boss.

Front-line supervisors and safety people have the most challenging positions in any organization. Front-line supervisors and safety people have the most challenging positions in any organization. Most do it with little management or supervisory skills training. It's tough to stumble around in a job trying to find your voice and management style. Yet, supervisors and safety people do it. They manage the heart and soul of production and must get exceptional safety performance. If this is you, here are five things you need to acquire to become more effective at the job:

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?