Sustainable Safe Work Cultures and the Lone Safety Professional

I am not someone who normally posts my own thoughts on social media platforms. I believe everyone deserves their own point of view in professional matters, but also deserves the right to privacy in those beliefs if they choose.

I am posting this today because I feel that there is a disconnect between larger, structured safety programs and the individuals that must administer those programs at a local level, especially when there is a single safety professional responsible for safety program management within their local operating unit. When you are the only safety professional in a sea of production minded people, a measured and well considered precise approach is necessary in finding stability and sustainability. Many will disagree with what follows, and others will believe it makes sense. At the end of the day, less people will suffer injury and “the numbers” will improve.

In my career I have been that lone safety professional, I have been one of many, and have directed programs as a single safety professional as well as those with a number of subordinate safety professionals. ?

In each corporate environment I have been a part of, executive leadership has looked for incredibly aggressive program elements aimed at decreasing incident numbers and establishing sustainability of that environment, admittedly stating that they do not know how to “get things going” in regard to building a “culture of safety” within their organizations.

The end game is sustainability. Once a company reaches the point where incidents are greatly reduced in frequency, severity, and type, the goal is keeping that state for as long as possible.

Whatever it took to reach that improved state, goals for front-line supervisors, awareness campaigns, safety program education, etc., the real goal is sustainment of that state. Here is where the really tough question must be asked; “can we keep going with what we’ve done?” If you’ve established a hard pace, keeping it up may be difficult.

The answer is based on awareness of the factors that effect the improved state of safety, as well as the amount of effort required to build it in the first place.

How much was put into the original campaign to reduce incidents? How many people were involved and is it realistic to think that this level of involvement can be sustained? ?

The answers to these questions can be disappointing for a lone safety professional working in a single company division somewhere. The reality of sustainability is that you can only maintain a condition for as long as you can control the pillars of the condition. A good example can be found in the training of elite military operators. While in a swimming pool they are required to hold a brick above their heads while treading water. Many will falter, some will quit, others would rather allow themselves to begin drowning instead of quitting. Passing the test has nothing to do with how long you can hold the brick above your head, but instead everything to do with letting the team down.

The message here is that when seeking to establish a culture of safety that is sustainable, the work being done must be spread to ALL the stakeholders (pillars) and must be done gradually over a period of time which I call establishing the culture’s “metabolism”, and the program improvements should seek first to be compliant with law, and then to “stay on course”. It’s easier to hold the brick when more people are involved with keeping it above water.

Once a program is stable, improvements can be incorporated into the individual program that work with the business unit’s “metabolism” for accepting them over time. If the goal is sustainability of the program, the major objective required to accomplish that goal must first be “stability”. If I have learned anything during a career spanning over three decades, it has been that pushing too hard and trying to make every company business unit fit into the same program box is not only unsustainable, but also counterproductive to any sustainable progress. This is leadership 101…don’t leave people behind.

The most interesting role I took on was as the safety program director of a construction company that had virtually no established safety program…none, and a log filled with severe injuries of similar types being suffered over and over again. My first hurdle was in getting people to come along for the ride. Every front-line leader had their own established idea of the importance of safety as a secondary interest to production. Easy to understand, profit drives everything. Not only was I the director, but I was also the only person in a safety position, a position I have been in repeatedly in my career.

Drawing that line in the sand is a crucial pivot point in negotiating change. Either you are coming along for the ride, or you are choosing to be on an island with your name on it where production is your only idol. No one wants to be on an island named after them with no ties to the mainland, especially when a serious injury occurs.

Compliance first, aesthetics second. We can spend the rest of our careers chasing compliance with law. I choose to find that place where injuries are reduced in severity and repeatability so our insurance rates will improve once we break the experience modification rate (EMR) cycle. After all, we need to show the big guy in the “C-suite” that we are saving money. This is our “profitability” as safety professionals. Everything else becomes icing on the cake.

Every business is different. In many places safety professionals exist solely to check a box somewhere. In other places safety professionals are a true resource. Wherever you work, and whatever your program looks like today, look at the culture that exists honestly and ask yourself first if what you have is stable. Is the culture fragile? Are there outlying front line leaders who are on their own island? How fragile is your existing culture? No one can live on an island for the culture to mesh. These answers will give you a base to work from in regard to culture improvement.

Secondly look at your program in regard to sustainability. How hard will it be to keep what you have built? How much work must be done simply to achieve compliance that brings you peace when your head hits the pillow? These answers will tell you what program areas are most important to begin with and build upon.

I would much rather work in an organization with a stable culture to build upon where compliance is driven as a priority than in an organization with a culture that is unstable due to a lack of cohesive stakeholders, all on islands of their own. If all was built correctly, we safety professionals would not have a job to do. Fitting square pegs into round holes is impossible without breaking something. Building relationships is key to attracting islanders to the benefits of the mainland.