Kevin Burns Blog

It’s called “safety management” for a reason. It’s made up of two parts: safety and management. You can’t do one without the other. Being a safety supervisor is a thankless job. It’s tough when it seems like the only one who loves you is mom - and even she has her days. Experienced safety supervisors can recall how tough it was to get crews to warm up to the new supervisor those first few months on the job.

There are 4 levels of safety buy-in you must progress through before safety becomes a personal value. Like most people in the safety industry, I came to safety from somewhere else. Twenty years ago I was selling photocopiers and fax machines. But, I preferred the idea of training salespeople more than the idea of being one.

When employees buy-in to safety, you focus less on what they do wrong and expect more that they will do right. It’s a fairly simple argument: when employees buy-in to the safety program, you no longer need to police them. All they need is a little coaching and mentoring. When employees buy-in to the safety program, they don’t forget their PPE. They engage in safety meetings. They demonstrate courtesy and respect for their fellow employees. In other words, policing, compliance enforcement and “gotcha” management goes right out the window. Those become archaic, cumbersome, outdated practices that slow down safety performance.

It is never the safety position or title that gets respect: it is the person in the position. Don Miguel Ruiz authored the book, The Four Agreements in 1997. It spent seven years on the bestseller list. The book is an inspiring read and could easily teach about safety and the building of a safety culture. Ruiz’s four agreements are as follows:

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.