Kevin Burns Blog

If you want to change the safety culture, you have to change the way you do things around here. There has been a lot of talk on the subject of safety culture recently. But for those that have a hard time defining what safety culture really is, let’s turn to Wikipedia’s definition. “Safety culture is the attitude, beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to safety in the workplace. Safety culture is a part of organizational culture, and has been described by the phrase "the way we do things around here."

The battle for safety is not about safety at all. Engagement, or a lack of it, is the biggest problem in the workplace today. The Gallup surveys tell us that 71% of employees are NOT fully engaged. Safety suffers when engagement is missing. How could it not be? If people aren’t engaged in their work, then they aren’t going to be engaged in safely doing their work. Why has this not become a massive battle by companies to re-connect their people with their work? Because the command-and-control model of management pushes rules-enforcement instead of relationship-building. In my new book, PeopleWork: The Human Touch in Workplace Safety, I write that more rules, more procedures and more processes heaped on to people who aren't engaged, aren’t connected and aren’t paying attention just isn’t going to work. If you want people to pay attention to safety, you first have to get them to pay attention. That means engage first. A 71% level of disengagement is a serious drop in focused-attention productivity. This should be the battle you’re fighting in your efforts to improve safety performance. Lost productivity and disengaged safety performance creates a huge financial mess forcing companies to continue to pay more and get less. You'd think that there would be a hue-and-cry from the corporate executives to find solutions intended to curb this very real problem that is plaguing our workplaces and costing us money. But there isn't. Engagement isn’t being talked about in safety circles. They’re still talking about more processes and procedures to fix an obvious engagement problem. But because it’s called an "employee" engagement problem, safety doesn’t know how to fix that. Here are three ways you can begin to improve engagement levels with employees:

At management level meetings, safety isn’t about rules. It’s about how safety advances the organization. Companies are including safety more often in general meeting discussions. It’s commendable. Safety people have wished for a long time for safety to be a top agenda item in management and general staff meetings. Now it’s starting to happen in more and more organizations. But is there a plan on behalf of the Safety department to maximize the effectiveness of this new position? Is safety prepared for their moment in the sun?

Safety leaders focus in the present and on what they are doing in the moment. With Labor Day on its way this weekend, many will be hitting the golf links. The subject of safety leadership is normally a serious one. But, I thought that we could venture a little off-road and have a look at safety leadership from a different perspective. Each of the points should be fairly evident and provide you with a new way to connect something fun with something serious. Let's play the front-nine. Here are nine reasons that safety leadership is like golf:

The quality of your work as a supervisor or safety person is tied directly to the kind of person you are. Management is key to the success of any organization - especially in safety performance. After you hire the right people and you train them, how you manage them will determine your success. No company ever achieved great success with mediocre management. Front-line is where the real work gets done. Front-line supervisory is one of the most important positions within an organization. You either make or break your safety culture reputation at this level. If it fails at the front-line, it fails all the way up the chain of command. Front-line is where the real work gets done. Before get to the four tips to be a better supervisor, if you'd like to get started on improving your ability to lead your team, then take the Free Preview of the Safety Communications & Coaching for Supervisors course. 40-minutes of video instruction, summary sheet download PDFs and a companion MP3 audio version to take with you on the go. And it's free to get started. Here are 4 tips and strategies to help front-line supervisors and safety people be better and more effective at the job:

Everything that matters in "the way we do things 'round here" rests almost solely with supervisors. Senior management doesn't create safety culture. It's impossible for senior management to be connected with every nut and bolt, every shovel full of dirt and every connected wire. It's impossible to see that from the senior management perch. But this is the world that supervisors live in; one connected wire at a time, one shovel of dirt, one torqued nut and bolt. It is for those reasons alone that supervisors have far more influence over the safety culture than a CEO. There is no doubt that senior management can influence a safety culture. But senior management neither creates safety culture nor reinforces it. The best they can do is commit to it and support it. Everything that matters in "the way we do things 'round here" rests almost solely with supervisors. But not all supervisors are given proper management-skills training courses. They may not know how to manage people, how to inspire them, or how to help them find their motivations for safety. Too many supervisors ascend into their positions without the tools to help them do the job effectively. But supervisors are certainly responsible for production, safety and teamwork. And if none of it happens, the supervisor is to blame. If you're a front-line supervisor, here are three reasons that your position can make or break safety and the crew culture:

If you want to become an effective and respected safety leader, work on these personality traits. Back in 2009, when Google first launched their Project Oxygen employee survey, they were looking for a way to help their managers be better. They were also looking for ways that managers and supervisors could help engage employees better.

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.

People-View is how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs. “Keep it simple and as short as possible. These guys don’t want a lot of information and they won’t remember most of it anyway. And don’t make it too complex or it’ll go right over their heads. And don’t give them too many breaks or they’ll take their time coming back. Some of them might even take off from the meeting. You can’t trust them. They’ll take a shortcut if they can find one.” Is that the people view for your crew? Is this how you talk about your crew to other supervisors or even your buddies behind the crew members' backs? Is that what you would say to an outside speaker or guest getting ready to address your people? People view is how you view people - specifically your people, your co-workers. People view is the predetermined opinions you have about either the people you work with or those you do business with. That includes job site contractors and subcontractors.