Safety (EHS) Culture Transformation

In the EHS domain in the industry segment, the recent buzzword, making rounds are Safety Culture, Safety Transformation, Zero Harm, BBS, and so on. Irrespective of which industry type the organisation belongs to, these terms attract and gain importance at senior management levels.

The question is whether the industry understands what are these and what needs to be done around them. Especially the EHS fraternity is confronted with these expectations, and at times without any clue of what else needs to be done over & above the existing stakeholder responsibilities.

In very simple terms the EHS professionals talk about 'Leadership Commitment' and the only expectation is that the leadership team should show the commitment towards Safety / EHS voluntarily. This is where things start to boomerang. During the recently concluded National Safety Week in India, almost every industry leader would have spoken about their seriousness on safety matters and their commitment to it. There begins the tricky part, what next? If the next step is not clear until another incident happens everyone goes back to minding their own business. Here is what a progressive organisation catapults upon the commitment.

In a nutshell, the following focal points right from the board room to the shop floor and beyond the workplace put the organisation on the right path. The guideline helps the organisation to find where it stands and what it wants to become and get better clarity with this approach.

What do I do and when, the answer to this comes from a matured EHS professional. If we do not have such talent, look for the coaching support from leaders in the EHS domain. Meaning, that each stage (not in the same order) has its own assessment, measurements, and execution based on the level of maturity the organisation stands today. What it means is that "one size fits all" doesn't work.

Just because somebody implemented Behaviour Based Safety (BBS), a set of training sessions, safety engagement process, may not fit your organisation in the same tone & format.

To summarise, a few sets of Standards and Procedures, Metrics, Training modules, etc may be used across industries but the tone, timing, flavour, and engagement levels depend on what the organisation wants to achieve. Of course, the wisdom of the leadership team to steer it in the right direction brings strong value than just keeping the Safety agenda as a priority alone.

The author can be contacted for such interventions in your organisation. We will explore more together. Your feedback and suggestions are welcome! :-)

ITS TIME TO TRANSFORM FROM

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