Making safety personal

Throughout my career in manufacturing, safety in the workplace has always been the top priority for organizations. Banners, signs, slogans and other visuals are indicative of this commitment to place safety at the forefront. But what does it really mean to have safety as a priority? At Greif, we are working to make safety personal.?

Companies share stories, have safety committees, focus on colleague engagement, and deploy other approaches to make safety a priority. Safety performance is measured, and action plans put in place. However, often this focus starts when the colleague enters the company premises and stops once the colleague leaves for the day.?

At Greif, we care for each of our colleagues as individuals in a holistic way. Our organization philosophy for safety is Zero Harm – we are committed to ensuring that no harm comes to any colleague, either at work or at home. To achieve this, we are on a mission to embed safety culture and thinking in every aspect of our colleagues’ lives by making safety personal.

Zero Harm goes beyond tracking the number of injuries. Zero Harm aims to create a positive mindset and awareness of safety by being engaged, watching out for one another, and seeking to reduce hazards in all we do.?

Mindset matters

As a starting point, we want everyone at Greif to develop a positive safety mindset. What does this mean? What characteristics and attitudes help to keep us and those around us safe?

Engagement, watching out for one another, showing care, seeking to reduce hazards, and thinking of safety in all actions are great starting points. People with a positive safety mindset:

• put safety before productivity and convenience
• are aware of their surroundings – always on the alert for risks to themselves and others
• have the confidence to speak up when they see something unsafe
• are willing to take action or stop what they’re doing if they believe something is dangerous
• understand why rules exist – and follow them.

A safety mindset isn’t something one can turn on or off; it is embedded in HOW one thinks and translates into HOW everything is done. It is a mindset that every person is a safety leader, regardless of their position, and that the only way to achieve Zero Harm is to be fanatic about safety!?

Committing to safety

One of the important ways we foster a positive safety mindset at Greif is through commitment based safety/quality (CBS/Q) discussions. Every day at the start of a shift, colleagues are asked to identify three specific commitments they will personally action throughout the day:

• a safety commitment for work
• a safety commitment for home
• a quality commitment.

Making three public commitments to keep themselves and others safe increases people’s sense of obligation to act on their words and to be personally accountable. This in turn encourages longer-term behavioral changes in making safety personal.

Making a safety commitment for work was easy for most. However, many colleagues found making a safety commitment for home particularly difficult. We noted cultural differences – people in some countries were simply less comfortable bringing personal discussion into the workplace and felt it was an invasion of privacy. Others found it difficult because safety was something they only thought about at work.

We acknowledged individuals’ concerns and took the time to explain that the reason we want to establish these commitments is because Greif cares about them. We didn’t force the issue by making everyone join in from the start; we encouraged our managers to lead by example. Once the plant managers role-modelled this behavior and showed they were comfortable sharing home commitments, next-level leaders followed suit, until it organically became part of the culture at all levels, which didn’t take too long surprisingly.?

Bringing safety home

Do you think of safety at home? If not, why? If so, what would be your safety commitment for home? Some examples from our colleagues are:

• watching for pets or children’s toys under my feet
• being deliberate about wearing my mask, washing my hands often and keeping social distance
• safely pulling over my car to take a call
• hydrating often when exercising or performing outdoor tasks
• ensuring I am using the right tool for the job I am performing
• wearing safety glasses and closed-toed shoes when cutting the grass
• using a proper step stool or ladder when grabbing out-of-reach items or changing lightbulbs.

When we stop to think of our actions at home and how many of them could create harm, it is surprising how often we do routine housework in a non-routine or unsafe way. These home commitments reinforce the mindset of pausing to think through a task or activity, identifying safety risks, and planning and acting accordingly.

We have seen this have an impact on colleagues’ broader family and friends. For example, one colleague reported that when he started wearing safety glasses to cut the grass, it prompted a family discussion about making safer choices. Now, on the rare occasion he forgets to wear his safety glasses, his child reminds him. Other colleagues have shared examples of avoiding serious injury to themselves or a family member as a result of greater awareness of safety in their personal lives.?

Talking about safety commitments for home has also improved relationships and trust in the workplace. Sharing a personal commitment is giving other colleagues insights into each other’s lives outside work. Instead of being person X, who operates a particular piece of machinery, they become a father, a son, a football player, a carpenter, a gardener. Relationships are being elevated to a new level, friendships are being forged through common interests, and trust is growing. As a result of these relationships and trust, colleagues are more open with one another to provide feedback on unsafe activities because they care for them, as people, in a holistic way.

It takes time…

My advice to other organizations at the start of their journey to Zero Harm? Define the standard you seek, but be flexible in terms of the pace at which it is adopted across your organization. Make sure your leaders understand and buy into what you want to accomplish – they will be the role models for this significant change. And finally, don’t expect perfection at the start.

We are well on our journey to Zero Harm, while still learning every day.