Kevin Burns Blog

To improve employee participation in the safety program, clear communications are key.

If you are going to communicate something in safety, what do you want to have happen? How exactly do you want your people to participate?

Informing people isn’t enough anymore. Your people are already bombarded with, on average, four thousand marketing messages each day. Everywhere they look, they are getting access to another message – competing with your safety message - even as recently as this morning. 

But let's say that you are above-average in compelling and engaging your people’s attention during a morning safety meeting, as soon as they leave the meeting, they are faced with hundreds more messages that all compete for attention. So, to combat this, you have to be clear.

If you want people to care about safety, you have to first care about them.

I was working with a group of minesite supervisors and we were discussing the needs of employees and how a supervisor can make sure that employee needs were being met. I asked this question: how can you show your employees that, as supervisors, you care?

Here are some of the responses:

• Give good communication
• Improve your listening skills
• Be respectful of their needs
• Demonstrate persistence
• Engage them in problem-solving
• Recognize employees for their good work
• Take a time-out with employees
• Help employees to re-focus
• Show support for your people especially when they need it.

All good answers. In fact, a lot of necessary answers. But the answer that wasn’t mentioned was, perhaps, too obvious. It is the one thing that supervisors, managers, safety people, executives, and even fellow workers must do to show their fellow employees that they care.

Are you meeting the needs of your people in safety meetings?

How many times have you seen presenters, with 10 minutes of solid information, stretch it into a 90-minute presentation? How does that happen? Here’s how. The person organizing the safety meeting is trying to fill blocks of time instead of developing content that will make a difference to their people.

If you want to change safety performance, you have to change the approach and the conversation.

In safety, there are no trade secrets. The same set of rules apply to every company within an industry. Construction safety applies to all builders. Mining safety is the same for every mine. Electrical safety is the same for every electrician. Whatever your industry, your competitors don’t get a leg up because they have different rules to play by. Everyone has the same rules and the same code.

If you want your people to care, do and say the things that matter to them.

Why won't people just follow the safety rules? Why don't they speak up at meetings or take the paperwork seriously? Tough questions to ask if you’re a supervisor or safety person trying to get their people to care about safety. But, here's the good news: you can make people care about safety.

The supervisor is the first line of defense when it comes to complacency.

You probably take great pride and talk proudly of your people, competent teams who do excellent work. But, from time to time little issues are starting to show up in the form of small mistakes, and memory and judgment lapses. That’s complacency-creep.

Good team members are reliable. They do the right thing at the right time for the good of the team. And, their co-workers can rely on them to do the right thing always. That goes a long way in building your reputation.

When you're at work, your team members want to be able to rely on the other members of the team. All of them. Would the people you work with, if they had to pick out three employees, name you as one of the top three most reliable team members in safety and who consistently look out for the welfare of others?

Asking which traits make a good safety leader is like asking which auto parts make the best car.

A question was posed by a safety person asking what are the traits that make up safety leaders? Asking which traits make a good safety leader is like asking which auto parts make the best car. Is it parts that make a customer choose BMW over a Mercedes or a Dodge Ram over a Chevy Silverado? Nope. Not parts. It’s the whole package.

A car is tangible. You can see it, touch it, smell it, hear it and drive it. It is a thing you control when you are behind the wheel. Leadership, of the safety variety, is much the same except you can’t see it, touch it, smell it or hear it. But you can drive it.

Having a collection of car parts on your front lawn is useless. Having those parts assembled by a skilled technician is what makes it a car. Leadership traits mean nothing unless assembled by a skilled technician. Then, the collection of parts must be driven by a proficient driver.

Leadership is not a position. It is an attitude. Management is the position. One has nothing to do with the other. Safety too is an attitude. It is a state of mind and a way of living your life.

If safety meetings are not fun or engaging for attendees, they won’t remember what was discussed. So streamline your meetings in 2018.