Kevin Burns Blog

It’s not the framework that determines safety success. It’s what happens inside the framework. Each year, sports leagues adjust and tweak their respective rules in an effort to make the game more entertaining for the fans. They also adjust rules to better protect their players and make the game safer. But rule changes don’t always prevent penalties or injuries. Even with new rules, sometimes tougher rules, individual players still choose to step outside of the rules. As much as there needs to be a framework to play the game within, it’s not the rules that improve the play. It's what the players do, the actions they take within the rules that improves the play. It's also what makes the game more exciting for the fans and safer for their fellow players. Safety performance is only as good as the people who are engaged in safety. Safety rules and process are a framework for how we are supposed to work in safety. But it still comes down to what each individual employee chooses to do within the rules and process of safety that determines the safety program’s success.

If you want to be passionate about safety, first be passionate about people. Successful workplace safety culture lies in the relationship between the frontline employee, the employee’s immediate supervisor, and the bond among the entire crew. No senior level initiatives, safety department compliance measures, or culture improvement ideas can have positive results if the frontline supervisor hasn’t established real working relationships. The supervisor needs to be a tipping point between safety compliance and safety success.

If you want to impact safety performance and buy-in, you are going to have to make a heartfelt connection. Finding a way to get front-line employees to buy-in to safety is tough. Communications can be a bit uncomfortable too, especially during the awkward one-on-one, heartfelt moments.

Welcome to The Safety Leader Podcast. We are live on Libsyn and iTunes! Click the play button above to listen. Subscribe to The Safety Leader Podcast in iTunes. https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-safety-leader-podcast/id1147852584 If a safety issue doesn’t affect you directly, you may see the importance of addressing it but you may not feel the same motivation to address it quickly. Because the problem doesn’t affect you personally. If you’re not working directly at the front-line, you may not be motivated by the same things or in the same way that a front-line worker or supervisor is when it comes to safety. Every moment spent in an office, and not in the field or on the shop floor, is a moment that you’re not experiencing what your front-line crews and supervisors are experiencing. When you talk about performance numbers at safety meetings, they don’t have the same meaning. They don’t resonate with your people the way they do with you. If you want to connect with people at a level where they feel your commitment to safety, walk a mile in their shoes, or walk a mile beside their shoes. Walk where they walk. See what they see. Experience what they experience....

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:

When employees say that they’re in it for the paycheck, the other safety motivators are missing. A few years ago, a group of paper mill workers gathered in a community hall for a safety meeting. I was facilitating a safety leadership workshop that day. The conversation turned to motivation for safety. I asked the attendees to shout out reasons why the employees were motivated to work safely. First answer offered? Money talks. It seems that the employees were given a quarterly bonus for exceptional safety performance. Now, I disagree with cash incentives as motivation for increased safety performance. So I followed up asking that if the bonuses stopped, would they purposely engage in unsafe work? No one was willing to step forward and be anything but safe. We established that it wasn’t the money that motivated them to be safe. They agreed that money played only a small role in helping them to focus on safety. Motivating Safety Beyond The Paycheck So, what about the people who claim to be only in it for the money? The ones who say they only come to work for the paycheck? How do you get them motivated about safety?

Welcome to The Safety Leader Podcast. We are live on Libsyn and iTunes! Click the play button above to listen.

To resonate, a safety message needs to address perceptions, misconceptions and align with attitudes. Safety communications and marketing are important. A cohesive communications or safety marketing strategy helps to connect many of the dots in safety for your people. It gives them reminders and helps safety stay top-of-mind. Telling your people something once in a safety meeting and hoping that it changes behaviour doesn't work. It won’t. You need to include a communications and safety marketing strategy. Then repeat.

Welcome to The Safety Leader Podcast. We are live on Libsyn and iTunes! Click the play button above to listen. (Subscribe to The Safety Leader Podcast in iTunes. In iTunes Podcasts, simply click "File" and then "Subscribe To Podcast." Enter "http://kevburns.libsyn.com/rss" in the open window.) It's About Respect As a safety leader, you have a strong commitment to safety. Scolding your bosses on social media for a lack of commitment to safety accomplishes nothing. It displays a lack of respect for your co-workers. Safety folks are convinced that safety can’t improve without senior management’s support and commitment. They believe that the safety department isn’t able to bring the safety numbers down until senior management gets on board and increases their commitment to safety. That’s not true. A perceived lack of commitment to safety from senior management doesn’t make your job impossible. It’s just going to be a little harder but not impossible. Senior management is responsible for ensuring the health of the forest. Front-line supervisors and safety personnel are responsible for ensuring the health of each tree. And if the trees are healthy, the forest is healthy. Your job at the front line is to ensure the health of each tree.

Welcome to The Safety Leader Podcast. We are now live on Libsyn and coming soon to iTunes! Click the play button above to listen. (Meanwhile, you can still subscribe to The Safety Leader Podcast in iTunes. In iTunes Podcasts, simply click "File" and then "Subscribe To Podcast." Enter "http://kevburns.libsyn.com/rss" in the open window.) How did the Safety Leader Podcast come about? In talking with quite a few of my clients and connections on social media, I came to realize that many of my Blog readers worked on the road, in remote locations sometimes, from their mobile offices a lot and didn't have ten minutes to sit down and watch a video or read a few blog posts in succession. But you drive to work and you drive home from work. And sometimes you drive for work. It's those miles that can be made useful, where you can improve your skills as a supervisor or safety person to get better at helping others to be better at safety. As a safety communications and management consultant, I’ve seen that when frontline supervisors buy into safety as one of their personal values, they better understand their role in keeping the workplace safe. The Safety Leader Podcast introduces the next level in safety. Workplace safety lies in the relationship between the frontline employee, the employee’s immediate supervisor, and the bond among the entire crew. Supervisors are uniquely positioned to bring workplace safety past compliance and across the threshold to where safety is personal. When trust and respect are the tools of frontline supervisors, their ability to personally influence frontline employees is deeply improved.