Buzz words… oh how I have come to hate them. In my earlier days in this profession, it was called “flavor of the month safety” as we had some catchphrase or “program” we’d implement to try and break through the “mental fog” that caused workers to work unsafely. Then came along the “silver bullet of safety” called Behavior-Based Safety and it seemed we had found the answer -that magical solution to end workplace accidents. As if it is ever that easy!!! Everyone was doing it; if you wanted to be an OSHA VPP STAR workplace you better have a BBSP in place – it was that powerful of a movement. Fortunately, during this time, I worked for two of the finest and brightest plant managers who were crazy about keeping their people safe. A craziness that was NEVER WAIVERED for anyone or anything – not even BBPS. To these two men, it was just another tool to aid in their desire that everyone who walked through the gates of their realm of responsibility got to walk out in the same (and maybe even better) than how they walked in. What drove these two men? Safety was a value to them, both personally, and now as a plant manager – professionally.
We did not need, and I was actually forbidden in some instances, of plastering the workplace with safety posters claiming how important safety was to the business. These guys hated this approach and actually found it insulting to their true intent as the plant leader. Both said virtually the same thing…
“I have failed if the workers need a poster to remind them how important their safety is to me”. Dale Fannin, 1997
Dissect that statement and understand what he is saying. He did not do safety for the company, his goals and objectives, or for OSHA. He had me working day and night for one simple outcome… no one was injured on his watch. When we did have an accident, he always reminded me… “it is how we respond to such events that separate us from the ordinary!”
When one of our team members needed help or their family needed help, it was us who stepped up as plant leadership and did what was needed to help this employee through this difficult time. Yes, of course, we began the investigation into what happened, but this effort was NEVER about “what did they do” but rather “why did they do what they did”. All hands on deck, from Unit Manager, HR Manager, Supervisor, me – everyone was focused on the task at hand in helping this employee return to work so he could continue caring/providing for his family. And yes, the company got a benefit from this, but it was all about the employee!
And during this time I witnessed firsthand how employees responded to this safety approach.
When employees recognize that all that is done in the name of safety is for them – not some government agency and that managers actually care that workers are performing their tasks in the prescribed manner, the workers respond by making better choices. Dr. Geller refers to this as “managing people like bank accounts”. We have to make a lot of deposits so that one day when we have to make a withdrawal we do not bounce the check. It is quite amazing to watch. Making the “safety deposits” is the fun part of safety – simply interacting with the workers and talking about THEIR SAFETY should be second nature in an environment where safety is valued by the business. No need for any dramatics; sure at first, people are skeptical, as they had lived through all the “flavor of the month” style safety. But with consistent engagement and positive re-enforcement for working safely, something they had never experienced, the plant began to change its attitude towards “safety”.
We were never going to get 100% on board – when you have 500 workers, you will always have some percentage that has been screwed over so badly by a company that they will never trust another. Sort of like the abused puppy syndrome – regardless of how much you love it – it will always be bashful and reflect back on its abuse and reflect those tendencies and behaviors. Our goal was not the traditional 80-20 spilt, Claude and Dale had aspirations of a 90-10 split. With the reversal of the traditional safety peer pressure model, they believed that the 80% could turn an additional 10% of the workforce with their POSITIVE Peer Pressure. I have written about this “positive peer pressure” before; but as a reminder, it is when we take the peer pressure that employees were under in the old safety models – you know, the pressure to not report that accident as it will ruin the incentives!?!?! We flip this model and begin rewarding behaviors and efforts with one of those being near-miss and first aid reporting. Rather than applying pressure to hide injuries – we reward for their reporting, investigation, root cause analysis, and corrective action plans. So now, rather than being pressured to hide incidents – employees are now pressured to report incidents! And yes, the official incidents rates went up for a year or so – but we do not measure our success in safety by the number of failures! Those incidents were happening – people were just too scared to report them for various reasons, most notably the peer pressure they received in doing so, especially if that injury impact the “incentive program”.
The moral to this story… if you need banners, safety days, etc. to “prove” safety matters to the business you may need to take a step back and look at what is happening. I am the biggest safety cheerleader you will meet – so I am not saying we should not be out in the workplace talking about safety and having little reminders in break rooms and the likes. But having banners espousing how important safety it to manage is a lame attempt to cover up the actions and words that paint a different picture. Banners do not make “safety a value” – leadership and a world-class safety process make safety a value in each of us.
