What are the most effective ways to involve your senior executives in your safety culture assessment program?

Ensure senior executive engagement in the safety culture assessment by underscoring its strategic significance. Articulate the correlation between a robust safety culture and organizational success, presenting data-driven insights on the profound impact of safety initiatives. Facilitate open communication channels for executives to contribute insights and concerns. Encourage their active involvement in safety discussions, workshops, and initiatives, reinforcing the integration of safety into the organizational fabric. Aligning safety objectives with broader business goals establishes a cohesive approach with strong support from senior leadership.

Likely the most important thing to understand is if this is a 'heart' play or a 'head' play or a combination. Some leaders simply want to do the right things. So, the scope is based upon 'what good looks like.' If it's a 'head' play, then it's about cost, insurance, productivity, TRIR, and SIFp, and the total cost of operational risk and you begin to benchmark. If it's both, combine the two!

First, communicate the importance of their involvement and emphasize their role in leading by example. Second, schedule dedicated time for them to participate in safety assessments and meetings. Lastly, encourage open dialogue and actively seek their input and feedback to demonstrate that their perspectives are valued in shaping and improving the safety culture.

One major point I need to emphasize here is that your departmental goal must align with the organizational goal to make progress to make progress. A key area to focus on is the identification of hazards and risk assessment of identified hazards, with this you are contributing to the overall organization goal which is either to minimize the risk or eliminate the risk. Again, this has a direct effect on your organizational culture. Finally, it is important to make sure all those items that can not be resolved for some reason beyond your department's control are raised in the Safety Review Board Meeting.

Involving management′s leaders in operational safety aspects is a key factor in improving safety. Usually, leaders have to deal with profit challenges which at some point touch the delicate, and blurred line, between safety and profit. The way to do it belongs to each organization but requires people with skills to communicate the operational reality without fairy tales.

Learning from experienced improves the performance and productivity. The Senior Executives must have encountered lot of experiences which will have certain validations for a lot of complicated tasks. So having Senior Executives in Role Model poster helps

Encouraging senior executives to act as role models involves active participation and exemplification of the organization's desired behaviors and values. Their experience, often gained through a 'trial and error' approach, not only serves as a valuable guide but also contributes to improving overall organizational performance. By embodying these principles, senior executives play a pivotal role in fostering a culture of continuous improvement and setting a standard for success within the organization.

Sponsorship is critical. And it comes from the CEO or the COO. Most critical is to have a discussion on what will happen with the results, what a typical journey may look like and what resource level they are prepared to allocate. Begin to talk sustainability before you start.

3. Involve them in the data collection The priority should lay on data collection to analyze the risk. For having the valuable data, the more total number the better accurate. Even improvement for process would be included. It would help for all employees for a just culture.

Data Collection is one of the ways used to explore more information on a specific issues to provide solutions to such a problem. Data collection is an ideal thing to be practiced if you want to come up with better solution to a specific problem. You will be able to explore at length on the issue and come up possible solutions. Engage in several experts to share their ideas on the matter to enable you get the appropriate solution.

First according to Schein you cannot really measure culture as it is at the assumptive level. You can measure climate and organizational functioning. Both are products of culture. If your objective is to improve work experiences and outcomes for the employees and the organization then measure these two things. Further you need to do so with a validated instrument that can benchmark what good looks like. There are very few of these, there are a couple. Unless you use the right tool the job of figuring out where the leverage really is becomes guesswork. Do not waste time or management credibility on something that does not provide accurate information to act on.Credibility with the workforce is too scarce to squander on just “doing anything”

Ask your senior team why do THEY want the assessment? What is driving the desire for an assessment and what do they expect to do with the outputs (which may be highly positive or possibly hard to read).