Kevin Burns Blog

Safety Isn’t A Process Problem - It’s A People Problem

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

There is a people problem in safety, a mindset problem in safety and a decision-making problem in safety. Four workers were attempting to lift the fourth wall into place on a home construction project. The wall was too heavy for the four to lift and so three let go crushing the fourth under the weight. The worker died.

Stop Training In Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

If they don’t believe in safety in the first place, then all of the safety training in the world isn’t going to help. Challenges with workplace incidents can be traced right back to Day 1 - safety training. Training is the basics that workers need to do the job today. There is no personalization or customization of the training based on either aptitude, attitude or comprehension. Basically, people are trained in safety on a schedule, and it is expected that they will all “get” it at the same time. Training’s fatal flaw is an assumption that everyone starts from the same place.

6 Gut-Check Safety Strategies

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

200 people will die in workplace incidents this year - one every 43 hours. Every second day, someone is going to die. The roofer stood 3 stories up on the roof and surveyed his work. On his back was his fall-arrest harness. At his feet was the clip supposed to be connected to his harness. I called the company OH&S Manager. He explained he would take action immediately and mentioned that any contractor in contravention of OH&S regulations are fined $100.

Why Safety Meetings Must Move Out Of Back Shops

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

If you want to change the culture of safety within your company, start not with how you DO safety, start with how you celebrate safety. We've all been to safety meetings that missed the mark—topics irrelevant, sessions too long, disorganization was the rule.

How To Motivate Employees To Buy-In To Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on September 22, 2025

In safety, there is a mistaken belief that in order to motivate employees to buy-in to safety, you have to “go negative.” After delivering a keynote presentation at a safety meeting of electrical linemen, I ended up chatting with Don, a veteran of electrical installs. At one point, Don made a laughing reference to the fact that he had lost his right thumb in a farm accident many years before.

Make Safety Sexy - Part 1 (in an endless series)

Posted by Kevin Burns on September 17, 2019

Stop discussing the negatives of not being safe. Instead, focus on the positives of buying-in to safety. The words “Make Safety Sexy” might conjure up the image in the photo for some. But that’s not at all what the phrase means.

5 Reasons Why Safety Incentives Do Not Work

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

Your incentive program may actually be preventing your employees from buying-in to safety. Here are 5 reasons why. You may have fallen under the impression that safety incentives, paying your people (in either cash or prizes) to achieve Zero, may actually work. Well let me say right here that safety incentives do not work - ever.

3 Ways To Start Fixing Workplace Apathy In Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

The rate of 71% of North American workers that are not actively engaged in their work should be a wake-up call to every supervisor and safety person. Turn on the specialty TV channels like The Food Network and Home and Garden TV and you will see a steady parade of experts hosting renovation or restaurant-turnaround fix-it shows. In every one of these programs are several common denominators: people who don’t care about much people who are apathetic and don’t buy-in to their job people who have lost their passion for the work they do and are simply going through the motions people who don’t take pride in their work and think “good enough” is good enough.

How To Create Incredible Employee Focus In Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

How do you get employees to find their focus in safety when some show up at work in the morning barely a degree or two above comatose? It started on a conference call with my client's Safety Day organizing committee. They had chosen me to be the closing keynote safety speaker for a series of safety meetings. We spent a considerable amount of time preparing for the event, reviewing and discussing the pages of responses to my pre-event questionnaire. It was during the discussions that one of the committee members made an off-handed comment that may just prove to be a great tool to get employees to buy-in to safety.

What Guitar Store Employees Can Teach About Safety

Posted by Kevin Burns on October 1, 2024

To attract the people who already buy-in to safety as a personal value, you need to study the example of how guitar-stores hire employees. You don't find personal values on a résumé. The résumé is a lousy tool for finding engaged workers with a set of personal values that buy-in to safety. A résumé doesn't give you that information. It only tells others what a worker was allowed to do in their last job - not what they were good at, not what they stand for and certainly not what makes their bum hum (excites them and drives high motivation).

Leadership for frontline industrial supervisors.

Safety Isn’t A Process Problem - It’s A People Problem

Stop Training In Safety

6 Gut-Check Safety Strategies

Why Safety Meetings Must Move Out Of Back Shops

How To Motivate Employees To Buy-In To Safety

Make Safety Sexy - Part 1 (in an endless series)

5 Reasons Why Safety Incentives Do Not Work

3 Ways To Start Fixing Workplace Apathy In Safety

How To Create Incredible Employee Focus In Safety

What Guitar Store Employees Can Teach About Safety

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