Aligning Personal Values with Company Core Values, Safety First

In my first article in this series, I stress the importance of aligning personal values with those that you uphold in the workplace. In the next 10 posts, I will be covering my personal values and how they can be actioned in the workplace.

Family Rule No. 1: Safety First

One of the values, and rules in our home is "Safety First." While it may seem like a cheesy slogan, it's come in handy in a number of situations. For example, before the car moves out of park into reverse or drive, we ask "safety first" to check if everyone is buckled up.

Broken down simply this means?that it's always best to be safe rather than sorry. It may seem like an easy way out of any responsibility or concern for our own lives, but in reality, taking precautions will keep us safe from all sorts of accidents and being prepared for any situation that may come our way.

At home, the more visible ways this rule is followed can be in the following ways

1. Making sure to have a fire extinguisher in your home and keeping matches, lighters, candles, and any other potential sources of fire away from children.
2. Having an escape plan for all family members and pets in case there is a fire or other emergency
3. As parents teaching children about safety, avoiding dangerous situations, and always have a meeting place if one gets lost when we're at outings.
4. Taking first-aid?courses to learn how to respond in an emergency.
5. Having smoke detectors installed and be sure they are working properly.

These are simple, and as an individual, your ideas and values around safety may be more or less robust depending on what safety means for you.

How can Safety First be applied to the workplace?

It depends on the sector you belong to, and there are a plethora of applications the term safety can be applied to for an organization to prioritize safety, mitigate risk, and evangelize a safety culture.

Since I have operated in the private technology sector for the last decade, the examples below apply to how I would action my value "Safety First" in the workplace.

1. Take responsibility for your personal safety and learn how to act in an emergency.
2. Follow work procedures, including but not limited to safety protocols and best practices, so if you follow work procedures, safety standards?and what is included in the employee handbook.
3. Use break times, this is the most overlooked - yet highly valued rule of safety guidances since it is well studied that breaks provide benefits, such as time to relax and reduce stress which may prevent burnout and injury on the job.
4. Create a sense of psychological safety where members of your team don't feel that they will be embarrassed, rejected or punished for speaking up.
5. Regularly go through cybersecurity, IT, password, and website application security training to remain diligent in protecting your organization against vulnerabilities.

While this isn't an inclusive list, these are the ways I can personally action one of my personal values in the workplace.

How can safety be a value identified while interviewing an organization?

If safety is an important value for you and you're interviewing companies, some questions you may want to ask in the interview process may include the below:

1. Tell me about a situation when you corrected another employee for operated outside of standard procedures.
2. Have you ever disagreed with a supervisor/leader about a safety/security issue, and how did you handle it?
3. Can you tell me about a time a person or team messed up??What happened?

Understanding the characteristics of safe organizations, identifying potential red flags from the hiring team, and knowing the questions to ask during a job interview to uncover a company’s values will help you find the right cultural fit. Good luck!