Kevin Burns Blog (35)

Kevin Burns Blog

Leadership for frontline industrial supervisors.

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5 Things You Absolutely Must Know To Shift Safety Culture
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
5 Things You Absolutely Must Know To Shift Safety Culture
Every single person in the organization has a hand in a strong safety culture. It doesn’t work any other way. Strong safety cultures are built on character and values like courtesy, respect, sharing, teamwork and personal leadership. They are not built on certifications, hierarchies, self-congratulations, position or tenure.
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3 Crucial Strategies To Improve Safety Culture
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
3 Crucial Strategies To Improve Safety Culture
To improve the culture of safety, take a long, hard look at how you frame communications about safety. Safety Culture will improve when the communications about safety within the organization improve. Besides increasing the quantity of communication, consider the quality.
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5 Reasons You're Not Getting Safety Buy-in
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
5 Reasons You're Not Getting Safety Buy-in
You have all of the control over your safety program and how many of your good people buy-in to the program. There are some things you can control and some you can not. What you can control is your participation in the safety program. No one can turn down or increase your participation in safety.
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3 Reasons You're Not The Boss Of Me In Safety
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
3 Reasons You're Not The Boss Of Me In Safety
You'd want your co-workers to make the right decisions if you were the boss of them. Well, you are the boss of you. So how about you act like you're in charge? Stop using the word leadership to describe management. We have all worked for managers who had zero leadership skills. You don’t call them your leader. You call them your boss. Leadership and management have little to do with each other.
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Top 3 Arguments For Safety
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
Top 3 Arguments For Safety
Here are three compelling arguments for choosing safety. Call it the “Diesel Strategy” because it is powerful and goes a long distance. The safety department complains that it’s difficult to get workers to buy-in to safety. Employees resist buying-in to a program of checks, forms and paperwork.
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5 Reasons Safety Meetings Need One Leader
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
5 Reasons Safety Meetings Need One Leader
The best safety meetings have both conviction and experience. The safety meeting is far too important to hand off to an inexperienced person and hope that it goes OK. Can employees lead the safety meeting? It is an idea that hopes to lead to increased engagement. The thinking is that if a new voice speaks, people will listen. If a staffer leads the meeting, then others will engage better. It might be true. But there is a stronger case for not putting the responsibility onto employees.
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3 Ways To Outsmart Safety Inspectors
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
3 Ways To Outsmart Safety Inspectors
A team focused on winning a championship will outplay the team focused on avoiding penalties. I received an email this week from a safety adviser whose company has the right safety systems in place. Company management is strong and committed and there is a concentrated presence on the company’s job sites. But, the Occupational Health & Safety inspectors still find infractions? The question was: what is it that the inspectors are seeing and why can’t the company see it first?
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Why Safety Managers Cling To The Rules
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
Why Safety Managers Cling To The Rules
Being in a position of authority doesn’t automatically make you a leader. Your safety management positon doesn't automatically elevate you. Managers, who have no self-confidence about their abilities, cling to the rules. The reason for that is simple: the rules are always on your side and when you stick to the rules, you will always be right. That's why safety meetings cling to the rules, the statistics and the reports; they are irrefutable. They are proof. They are results. By clinging to the rules and statistics, there is no room for employees to challenge the person delivering them.
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5 Conversations That Have Nothing And Everything To Do With Safety
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
5 Conversations That Have Nothing And Everything To Do With Safety
Improve the individuals and the organization as a whole gets better. Improve personal skills and the collective safety culture improves. Safety meetings, should solve problems and make the organization better. They are not meant to bore, to disengage or to frustrate. But they do. Meetings don’t have to entertain. But there is nothing wrong with entertaining employees and making work fun, even safety. Fun meetings engage employees and increase uptake.
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3 Critical Ways To Positively Communicate Safety
Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024
3 Critical Ways To Positively Communicate Safety
Do you want your people fearing for their safety? Or would you rather have them feeling confident and supported in their safe choices? The notice read: “An inspirational keynote speech preferably from someone who's had an accident. A leave-behind message to always be mindful and follow procedures. A flat fee of $(cheap). No phone calls please.”
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