Top 5 Strategies to Boost Your Safety Culture

Have you ever heard the motto, "SAFETY 1st"?? Well, this cliché statement is outdated and doesn't work anymore.? I want you to erase that “SAFETY 1st” motto from your mind. Safety is a value and should not be prioritized. That is why I put together a 5-step strategy to help companies boost their safety culture.? As an Occupational Health and Safety Professional for 10+ years now, I have learned that "Safety" is a psychosocial business with a "Health" component.

I'm sure most of us have worked on projects that are behind schedule and over budget. Some of us even start projects behind schedule and over budget on the first day of the project. The famous Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”. That is why you need a PLAN!

Step 1 - Balanced Business Plan: We must first create a balanced business plan when it comes to the culture within our organizations.?SAFETY + QUALITY + PRODUCTION = SUCCESSFUL CULTURE.?So, what does it mean have a successful culture???It is very simple, this is a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an organization which are used to achieve a favorable or desired outcome.??If you work safely with no care for quality in the work, then the work you have produced will be rejected and therefore results in no production.?If you work safely with no care for production, then this results in a company generating no revenue, thus the need for a balanced business.

The "SAFETY 1ST" sign that you hang up at the entrance to the jobsite...or the custom-made t-shirts that you have made for all your employees with the "SAFETY 1ST" logo all across the back and down the sleeve.?That kind of stuff doesn’t work and you’re not fooling an experienced Safety Professional, you are only fooling yourself.

What I usually see with organizations is “SAFETY 4th”, but you’re not going to put that on a sign or shirt.?Most companies who prioritize a business plan look like this; 1st-Revenue, 2nd-Production, 3rd-Quality, 4th-Safety.? So now you see why we start projects behind schedule and over budget and don’t value Quality or Safety??So, can you tell us where to start after we decide to create a successful culture in our organization??Tell us what Program to buy, or what training we need, or how we can hire you to take care of it for us.?No, No, No…it starts with you and the individuals within your organization

Step 2 – Management and Leadership Commitment:? We need the leaders and managers in our organizations to be committed and value Safety.?We also need to have the employees get involved in this successful culture that we are creating.?And we are not talking about getting them more t-shirts with the “SAFETY 1st” logo printed on them.

We need the Managers and Leaders to know and follow the rules that we expect our employees to follow.?When was the last time you went to a construction site, and you got out of your fancy truck and walked out on the jobsite without your Personal Protective Equipment on?? Your behaviors and attitudes will infect your employees, if they see you take it seriously, then they will be serious about it.?When was the last time our company managers and leaders attended a safety training class and sat through the whole class with our employees???

Employees need to be involved in this successful culture that is being created.?How many of you have a safety program that is in a 3-ring binder that sits up on the shelf in your office and collects dust.?Raise your hands again, come on.?Try starting a safety committee where the employees are actively involved and can actually discuss the safety culture with their managers.?This is just one way that safety leaders can evaluate their safety program for deficiencies and continuously improve the culture in their organization.

Now that you have a balanced business plan and have employees involved in a successful culture you need to leave the comfort of your air-conditioned office, get up out of your nice leather chair, put your work boots and your hardhats on and go out to the construction site and visit with your employees.

Step 3 – Job Site Visits:? We need to visit our jobsites and analyze the work actually being performed with our very own eyes.?Managers and Leaders need to evaluate the work on a frequent and consistent basis.?These include regular site safety and health inspections, where we show employees that we care about continually improving our workplaces safety culture.

This will allow the managers to create a reliable system for employees to notify their managers, without the fear of punishment, about the unsafe conditions in the workplace and to have their concerns addressed in a timely and appropriate manner.?This will also allow us to investigate the incidents and near misses that typically would go unreported and in turn identify the means for prevention.

If we don’t analyze these trends over time, the patterns and common causes of our injuries and illnesses will not allow the managers and leaders the opportunity to continually improve the safety culture. Now that leads us right into the next step.

Step 4 – Recognizing and Controlling Hazards:?Once the worksite has been analyzed and we have begun recognizing the hazards that our employees are exposed to, we can start controlling them.?Let me introduce you to my friend, the upside-down colored triangle, also known as the Hierarchy of Controls.?This simple 5-step process will allow us to control virtually every hazard we face at the construction site.?The idea behind this hierarchy is that the control methods at the top of triangle are potentially more effective and protective than those at the bottom.

Elimination and substitution, while most effective at reducing hazards, also tend to be the most difficult to implement in an existing process. If the process is still at the design or development stage, elimination and substitution of hazards may be inexpensive and simple to implement.?Engineering controls are favored because they are designed to remove the hazard at the source before it comes in contact with the worker. Administrative controls and PPE are frequently used with existing processes where hazards are not particularly well controlled but are the least effective types of controls.??

I received a phone call from a Superintendent one day in a panic.?He tells me there are bees flying all over the jobsite and stinging people and he doesn’t know what to do.?He tells me that one of his crews picked up a stack on concrete forms on the jobsite and there was a beehive that had formed inside of the forms.?When the forklift operator started moving the forms the bees went crazy and the forklift operator dropped the forms and the workers went scrambling.?The Superintendent calls his Manager and asks him what they should do about the problem.?The Manager tells him to go and buy bee suits for everyone so they can get back to work.?

We must use the Hierarchy of Controls when dealing with hazards that we encounter at the construction site. That leads us to our last step in the process, can you guess what it is??That’s right…Safety Training, but it’s not the type of training your thinking of.

Step 5 – Interactive Training:?One day the CEO of a company and the CFO were talking about investing in their employee’s safety training and the CFO says, “What happens if we invest all this money into training and our employees leave the company?” and the CEO says, “What happens if we don’t invest money into training them and they stay?”

Interactive Training is one in which the learners are encouraged to participate in the learning environment.?The days of death by PowerPoint are over.?We have to capitalize on the different way that Adults learn about the subject matter.?We can have group discussion, do field trips, review case studies, play games, have demonstrations, simulations, workshops, and even do storytelling.?We must also understand that learners not only learn from the instructor, but can also learn from other students, so we must get the students involved in this interactive learning.?

Now these 5 strategies can boost the safety culture of your company, but you have to get started first, and I can help you with that.?Let’s go over them one more time.

1. You need to create a Balanced Business Plan
2. Managers and Leaders need to be committed to safety and get their employees involved with the process.
3. You got to get out there and visit your construction sites.
4. Don’t forget to use the Hierarchy of Controls.?Bee suits are your last resort.
5. Make your safety training interactive to meet adult learning needs.

Now I bet you never thought when you woke up today that you were going to hear a Board-Certified Safety Professional say that Safety isn’t first.?But if you implement these 5 strategies you will indeed boost your safety culture within your organization.