This is NOT a fluff piece, as you may already know if you are a follower. I am just dismayed at all the rhetoric around safety these days. And yes, I realize I was spoiled rotten by the companies and men I worked for over my career as a safety pro in the chemical and semiconductor industries. So I know first-hand that there are organizations (at least at a facility level) that want safety to be a VALUE and not a priority. And that simple need is what drives safety pros to leave an organization – WE NEED TO ALIGN OUR VALUES! Employees must find a “home” where they can feel their personal and business values align with the organization. This is fundamental to becoming a TEAM – no winning team will have different values! But with safety pros, our “value system” is all about safety being a core value – NOT a priority. And this is how we, safety pros, need to be managed DIFFERENTLY than other managers/leaders within the organization. Safety is a CORE VALUE for our way of life, so when an organization uses the phrase “safety is a value at ____________,” we should fit into the fold perfectly, with minimal conflict. And most, not all, safety pros see (and live) safety as a VALUE, and when the organization’s values do not align, there is significant conflict. Safety pros do not want to hear all the right words; we need to see all the right actions/behaviors from management leadership.
So much attention has been placed on observing the workers who do the dirty and dangerous work that very few people actually observe the behaviors and attitudes of the senior leadership team of an organization. World-Class Safety pros do! And when we see a conflict between the organization’s true “values” and our personal/professional values, we will almost always seek a new home that is more aligned with our values. So when we see an org with a high turnover of safety pros, we can almost bet the house that we will find a lot of talk and minimal substantive action to back up the words. But when we see a safety team with low turnover, we can almost instantly see why in our discussions with management and workers.
Safety can never be a priority; it must become a core value! Priorities change – Personal Values don’t.
