Read this before you do your next 'Safety Walk'

I’m not a fan of the “Safety Walk”.  That’s predominantly because, often, they could more accurately be described as “unsafety walks", given they appear to be driven by an insatiable desire to find out what those pesky workers are doing 'wrong' or unsafely.  Once such a grave sin has been identified, a leader can then dutifully deal with such “violations” through various corrective actions.  If your goal as a leader is to crush team morale and trust, just make the above approach a KPI for your safety team … it’ll happen in no time! (I’m not kidding – many companies have KPIs of 5 [or so] such 'Safety Walks' a month!).

Case Study

‘Brian’ was an 'old school' HSE manager in the rail industry.  He had been living and working in Australia’s Southern State of Victoria, where the chilly month of August heralded the end of a harsh winter. An opportunity arose when Brian’s company internally advertised a vacancy for a Senior HSE manager in Australia’s sunshine State – Queensland -  in fact, the site in question was located in the lush, tropical far north of the State. Keen to escape the cold, and take on a more senior role in safety, Brian applied for the position (clearly nobody had mentioned the cyclones and crocodiles common to the area!). 

In late September Brian was notified he had been successful in his application, with a start date of December 5th to allow time for a thorough handover to his successor, and to facilitate his relocation to Far North Queensland. A few days prior to his start date, Brian arrived at Cairns airport, and as he exited the plane, the heat and humidity of a summer day in the tropics hit him like a brick! By the time he’d walked from the airplane door to the terminal building his clothes were drenched in sweat.

At 7.00 am on the already steamy morning of Monday, December 5th, Brian strutted into the site HSE offices where he was introduced to his safety team.  Keen to establish himself in his new role, and demonstrate his authority – something Brian relished – he decided to immediately get out in the field.  He was driven out to the rail maintenance yard, donned his PPE and walked over to where a team was setting up to do some welding work.  Without any introductions, Brian, with tight lips and an almost imperceptible shake of his head, began observing the welder. After a minute or two, Brian approached the welder and asked him to stop work.

Again, without any introduction, Brian launched into a tirade.“You’re welding with a face mask, but you should have goggles on underneath too – that’s a violation!” Suddenly, the rail yard that was hitherto a noisy workplace, fell silent.

“Who are you?” asked the exasperated welder (with a noticeable emphasis on the last word!).

“I’m the new head of HSE” replied Brian “and it’s a good thing I’m here.  I’ve only been on site 10 minutes and I’ve already picked up a serious violation”. Brian felt on solid ground – he could regurgitate Victorian safety standards, policies and procedures like a religious zealot recites Bible verses.

“No” countered the courageous welder. “It’s not a violation”.  Brian’s face reddened and he glared at the impertinent upstart.  Brian was just about to quote chapter and verse, but the welder cut him off.

“In the summer months, the humidity up here causes the goggles to fog up and obscure our vision, so its safer to just use a well-fitted mask – that has been the policy up here for years”.

If Brian had possessed as much humility as he did knowledge of Victorian Safety Standards, he could have simply apologised, and conceded he had a lot to learn about the differences between how work is done in different States. Sadly, Brian’s superpower was arrogance, so he said, tersely “Well, I’ll check when I get back to the office – I want to see who signed off on that!” As he stormed off, Brian was almost certain he heard someone say “dic*head!” – but he kept walking.  

It’s not difficult to imagine the conversation that took place among the maintenance team after Brian had left the building.  Neither would it surprise anybody just how quickly word spread across the site - It’s difficult to come back from such an episode, especially when you lack humility.

Brian was assuming a negative intent.  His habitual framing of “people as a problem to be solved” led to him seeking out behaviours that violated his pre-conceived norms.  When his hunt is successful he gets to exercise his authority and punish the violator. This traditional – Safety I – approach wrecks trust, destroys psychological safety and inhibits the workforce from sharing ideas, concerns, challenges and issues in the future, as illustrated below.

The Fear Loop

Assuming Positive Intent

When leaders assume a positive intent, it changes the focus from people as the problem, to people as the solution.  We then find innovators rather than violators, and the result is learning, trust and psychological safety, as illustrated below.

The Trust Loop

Through the art of humble enquiry, leaders are now in a better position to understand the differences between work as we imagine it is done, and work as it is actually performed by the teams.  This, in turn, enables leaders to work with the teams to identify hazards that are actually present, rather than those espoused by potentially redundant documents.

Rather than going for a 'Safety Walk', how about just going for a walk?  Chat with the teams about their kids, how the weekend was, how they do their work, and how we can best help.  Get out there with the Safety Differently mindset of “our people are the solution – they are the experts in doing their work”.  Framing our teams in these ways leads to us seeing our team’s choices - even seemingly errant ones - with a positive intent, and enables humble enquiry and subsequent risk mitigation strategies that are fit for purpose.

What are your experiences (as a leader or a team member) with 'safety walks?'

Read more in my latest publication "Next Generation Safety Leadership: From Compliance to Care"

Clive Lloyd is an Australian psychologist who assists high-hazard organisations to improve their safety performance through the development of trust and psychological safety and by doing Safety Differently. He is the co-director and principal consultant of GYST Consulting Pty Ltd, and developer of the acclaimed Care Factor Program. He was recently named among the top 5 Global thought leaders and influencers on Health and Safety by Thinkers360. He is the author of Next Generation Safety Leadership: From Compliance to Care.

For further information about the Care Factor approach please contact us at:

• Email: [email protected]
• Office:  +61 7 5533 2103 
• After Hours:  +61 447 114 040
• Snail Mail: PO Box 1229 Nerang Qld 4211

Website: www.gystconsulting.com.au