Management Commitment in Safety

1.???????? According to Harvard Business School Professor Michael Beer[1], "Leaders develop an organizational design, business processes, goals and measures, and capabilities that are aligned with a focused, winning strategy." It means that management commitment flows down from the top. If safety is not part of the organizational design, business processes, goals, measures or strategy right from the outset it becomes extremely difficult to implement it on ground or later. The Health & Safety Executive, United Kingdom has defined management commitment in safety, as under:

?"The product of individual & group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, & patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, & the style & proficiency of, an organization’s health & safety management[2]".

?In nutshell Management commitment in safety means that the commitment an organization, pronounces through HSE Policy or a Declaration towards achieving a safer work place. It is also a commitment that its leaders, managers, supervisors and workers make to manage their work with safety”

?2.???????? It is also the first and foremost prerequisite to achieve safety[3]. It’s not about how management thinks, it’s about the way they respect their safety teams and safety managers. There cannot be “ifs” and “buts” in safety. Either it is safe or unsafe. An organization whose leaders show only cosmetic support to safety will never be able to achieve excellence in HSE functions. Management commitment towards safety demands that anyone or everyone doing anything remains concerned about safety of people and assets. A CEO who avoids wearing helmet while getting into an area where it is mandatory for workers to wear hard hat should never expect HSE culture to grow in his organization. He has to lead from the front. The worst administrators and CEOs are those who expect their HSE teams to implement safety but ignores unsafe acts being done by his operational and maintenance line managers.

3.???????? Line Managers sometime start criticizing safety as intruders, outsiders, emailers, show anchors, whistle blowers or impeders which actually indicates poor management commitment towards safety. In reality, they should thank HSE teams for highlighting risks that can harm them at work. Here, it is pertinent to pronounce that Safety Officers must also avoid being cynical. They should remain courteous and caring at all times. Policing is the worst form of safety management though at some stage it may be recommended as an interim arrangement, but it should always be avoided.?If an organization has management commitment towards safety, they will surely take safety professionally and seriously at all times.

4.???????? Management commitment must also be reflected clearly in company HSE Policy and subsequent standard operating procedures. It may be measured as part of behavior based safety assessments[4] and program so organizational learning and development teams may focus on individuals and teams with low management commitment in safety.

5.???????? In order to understand management commitment in safety, better, it is imperative that we try to describe the roles of each tier of administration in an organization towards safety.

a.???????? Leadership. The Top Management has to be a role model in safety. They must undergo a thorough training and awareness session on safety with some experienced HSE professional if they feel shy of getting training from their own safety managers. Going through HSE management system of some world class organization commitment also entails that the line managers anchor and lead, all safety meetings. Presence of HSE professionals should only be solicited for technical assistance, advice, coaching or facilitation. It is because of the fact that internationally it is believed that, “Safety is basically a line management responsibility”. Yet another way to exhibit their management commitment, leadership should spend some time, an hour with their frontline teams doing a random safety walk or a management safety audit. It is the responsibility of the owners and the leadership to provide safe and enabling environment to all employees. Some of the world top notch organizations are quite regular in holding an A level executive HSE meeting every month chaired by the CEO or a Chief Operating Officer in which each functional leader briefs the leadership about his safety challenges, issues, achievements and incidents. Unfortunately, some of the weaker organizations expect their safety managers to conduct such meetings and all others listen to them as silent observers. Management Commitment in safety demands leaders to be upfront and not diplomatic on safety issues. Many leaders believe that if they provide PPEs to their teams they have done their duty. Whereas, PPE is just the last line of defense against accidents. They need to understand the hierarchy of risk control and implement the same in their organizations. Appreciations are important, management must publically appreciate employees doing well on safety. Management commitment means that leaders keenly listen to employees’ apprehensions and ideas about safety. They inspire a culture where everyone feels free to speak up. Safety isn't a one-and-done deal. It's an ongoing process.????

?b.???????? Departmental Heads. As a dad would rarely accept mistakes or follies of his son or a daughter, so does departmental heads do. The day we start admitting and acknowledging are weaknesses we will start improving. A safety concern should never go unattended. A good departmental head would also make sure that he and his team remains committed to safety. If he is committed, he would make sure that he will continuously take measures to inculcate good safety sense amongst his team. In this regard he may nominate some responsible member of his team as “departmental safety representative” who should coordinate with HSE team on various aspects of safety. Even if the departments are administrative in nature such as finance, planning, audit, admin, human resources, procurement, marketing, sales or media departmental safety representative is a must. There are still large number of safety aspects associated with these departments as well like ergonomics, road safety, electrical safety, emergency response etc. Management commitment by departmental heads also require complete support by the teams on organizational level safety challenges and decisions. Companies with rich safety cultures, expect each departmental head to be personally involved in HSE meetings, audits, briefings, incident analysis and even trainings. If you are a departmental head, it does not mean that you do not require any safety training or you cannot be a safety trainer. Your commitment to safety will be more visible if you conduct safety trainings yourself. It will help you to remain current on safety apart from serving as motivational tool on safety.

?c.???????? Middle Managers & Supervisors. They serve as the backbone of any organization. The culture of an organization is directly proportional to the quality and conduct of the middle management and supervisory staff. Their commitment to safety can actually do wonders. Unfortunately, many middle managers and supervisors associate management commitment with the role of their owners or organizational leadership. They strongly advocate that management commitment is required from a CEO only. In contrary, each employee has his own obligations on safety to which he must remain committed. Middle managers and supervisors are the one doing risk assessments, managing work permits, responding to safety incidents, dealing with audit observations and maintaining safety statistics while supervising work. More committed they remain, higher level of safety the organization will achieve. One of the responsibility of middle managers and supervisors is to arrange and manage safety resources for work. They are the one to conduct tool box talks and specific safety trainings. Their oversight and watch during work matters a lot. They know their workers much better than anyone else specially their weaknesses, limitations and safety awareness level apart from ground realities. Their commitment to safety will help them plan and organize safe work.

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d.???????? Frontline Teams and Workers. Epicenter of all commitments should be our workers and frontline teams. They are the one, exposed to the risks of hazards, the most. However, most workers don’t realize that management commitment in safety is equally applicable to them. A worker who is committed to work safely will always avoid accidents. All workers must understand the “Power of NO” in safety. If they are being asked to do some work without adequate safety arrangements, their safety commitment demands they must respectfully refuse, until safety controls are in place. According to a study by DuPont 96% of the accidents happen because of poor workmanship or safety behavior. Dr. Heinrich also concludes that there are 3000 Unsafe Acts or Unsafe conditions behind any fatality. Management commitment for a worker implies that he is committed to do his work in a safe manner. A worker must inform his superior about his health conditions before work if he feels uncomfortable or unfit. He must employ all safety arrangements and gears provided to him for safe execution of work. He should avoid lone working at all costs until and unless it has been well planned and adequately authorized. Knowing about his safety obligation and rights is his own responsibility. His commitment to safety will also be exhibited in the way he manages his PPEs and company assets / tools under his custody.

6.???????? Management Commitment in safety should not be restricted to arrangement of extinguishers, filling in of risk assessment form, few quick meetings[5], safety shoes or a helmet but it should be explicitly visible in every segment of an organization from feasibility reports to environment impact assessments, safety engineering, procurement preferences, budgets & costing, daily operations and maintenance assignments, construction ventures, scheduling & timelines as well.??

7.???????? There is no doubt that companies are in business to make money. Some departments like finance, sales, marketing, operations and or production are considered valuable while many others like admin, security, safety, CSR etc are considered as overheads or less important. Such, paradigms lead to organizational disorders and ultimately a downfall. Safety serves as a “stitch in time saves nine”. Investment in safety never goes wasted. Employees and workers work more diligently and energetically if they believe their leadership and management is doing a great deal of effort for their safety. Whether it is the quality of a dust mask or a safety shoes, or it’s a guard on machine or a grinder or good housekeeping in a work space, they all communicate about management commitment, the organization has towards workers safety.???

8.??? The saying “what gets tracked, gets done; what gets rewarded, gets done better” applies to management commitment. Even if safety is part of every workers’ job description still they need to be acknowledged and appreciated for good things they do in safety as part of improving their management commitment towards safety. It is natural of a human to desire for reward and recognition. It increases morale and satisfaction levels making employees more productive.

9.??? Management commitment towards safety becomes even more challenging when the company is in loss or experiencing fiscal downtimes. Often CFOs or finance managers are first one to cut down on safety expenses. However, what if the little left in the company, catches fire. A volunteer fire fighter cannot be a replacement for a professional fire fighter. A fire fighter without adequate resources to prevent, detect or deal with the fire is of no use. In companies where employees are laid off as the work orders or sales go down, safety officers and fire fighters become easiest hunt. This must not be done because safety of assets is equally important.

Managing work safely even if its little, is the finest example of management commitment towards safety. In the world of today where increasing population and densities have made work spaces even more congested, risks of safety accidents have increased. Even responding to any emergency situation is becoming more challenging with narrowing accesses. Its only possible if management commitment is embedded into the minds of every member of an organization.

10.???Management commitment is the first step towards building a safety culture in any organization and it is, “the most important”.

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About Author

Dr Zahid Faqir, PhD Safety (HSE) Lead at Fauji Foundation, Head Office in Rawalpindi, Pakistan with over 30 years of management and training experience is a Lead Auditor for Quality Management System (ISO 9001-2015), Environment Management System (ISO 14001-2015) & Occupational Safety & Health Management System (ISO 45001-2018), Certified from IOSH & NEBOSH-UK. He has been Head of HSEQ at K-Electric 560 MW CCPP, 900 MW CCPP, Group General Manager HSE at Younas Brothers Group (Lucky Textiles Mills Limited), HSEQ Head for Dolmen Group, Corporate HSE Manager at Tuwairqi Steel Mills Limited, Manager Operations at Foundation Public School. Besides this he has himself received more than 60 world class professional trainings from accredited trainers and entities beside imparting firefighting and emergency response management training at IBA, Pak Suzuki, IMC, SMU, K-Electric, TSML, FF, POF Wah, HSC, NILAT, Pakistan Navy, Pakistan Air Force, ARL, FPS, FGS to over 100000 men/women during his professional journey. He has represented Pakistani HSE Professionals in Kansai, AOTS, Japan, Dubai UAE & also PDC ASSP.

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[1] Beer, Michael and Russell A. Eisenstat. High Commitment, High Performance: How to Build a Resilient Organization for Sustained Advantage. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Print.

[2] HSC (Health And Safety Commission), 1993. Third report: organising for safety. ACSNI Study Group on Human Factors. HMSO, London.

[3] Safety Management: A Guide for Facility Managers, 2nd ed. Joseph F. Gusting River Publishers, 17-Dec-2020 ?p 40

[4] Kennedy, R. & Kirwan, B., (1995) The failure mechanisms of safety culture. In: Carnino, A. and Weimann, G., Editors, 1995. Proceedings of the International Topical Meeting on Safety Culture in Nuclear Installations, American Nuclear Society of Austria, Vienna, pp. 281–290.

[5] Kennedy, R. & Kirwan, B., (1995) The failure mechanisms of safety culture. In: Carnino, A. and Weimann, G., Editors, 1995. Proceedings of the International Topical Meeting on Safety Culture in Nuclear Installations, American Nuclear Society of Austria, Vienna, pp. 281–290.