Creating a safety culture - Envision your future state for safety

Before you start on any journey it’s important to have real clarity about where you want to end up. Once you know this, you can decide the best route you need to take to get there.

This is the same for your safety leadership journey. Taking time to understand the current state of safety, health and wellbeing in your team will give you real clarity of where you are right now. Once you’ve thought about this, you can then visualise what you want your future state to look like. The gap between the two highlights the transitions you and your team need to make to move from A to B and becomes your roadmap to lead them through.

Here’s a structure to help you get started.

1.????Understand your current state.

Take a piece of paper and divide it into three. On the left-hand side of the page reflect on what the current state of safety is in your team and bullet point it down the page. Use the following prompts to help you.

What do you see?

• How often do you see unsafe practices?
• How engaged are your teams in safety meetings?
• How well do your team support each other?
• Have you noticed any change in behaviour, people coming in late, quieter than usual?
• What are you seeing in your safety observations?

What do you hear?

• How do people talk about safety and wellbeing?
• How often do people speak up when they see something unusual or unsafe?
• How comfortable are people to question when they don’t understand??
• How often do you celebrate someone for speaking up?
• How often do you celebrate the great stuff in your team?

What do you feel?

• Has there been an increase in absenteeism?
• How does the energy of the team feel?
• How psychologically safe do people feel? Are they happy to be vulnerable and question or speak up when they see something?

Finally, take time to look at the results themselves e.g., injury rates. What do they tell you? What are the trends that you are noticing?

2.???Create your FUTURE state

Once you’ve got a clear understanding of the current state, take some time to envision what you want your future state to be. Fast forward 6 months and one year. Think about:

• What do you want to SEE?
• What do you want your team to be DOING?
• How would you like your team to be FEELING?

Write these down in the right-hand column of your page.

3.???Identify the TRANSITIONS required

• For each bullet point look at your current and desired future state. Identify what transitions need to happen to move your people towards the future state.
• Write these in the middle column.?
• Work through the list and think about the actions you and team need to take to move towards the future state.

Taking time to do this reflection will give you a great understanding of where you’re at now, where you want to be and what you need to do to lead your people on their safety journey.

?If you would like a fillable template to help you create your future state for safety, contact [email protected].?