A few weeks ago, I was asked to spend a morning with an executive team discussing “safety metrics.” In this discussion, I realized this team was somewhat confused with all the “lingo” thrown at them by many consultants over the past 10-12 years. They were lost in what mattered and had tried a rash of failed safety efforts (which they were NOT ready for). So, I took a step back and took them back to the basics…
I asked them to identify the Top Five Safety Efforts they felt were in place to help ensure the men and women doing the dirty and dangerous work went home each day in the same condition they arrived in. This is NOT about the programs that drive down the OSHA injury rates or reduce WC rates; this is more about SIF (Serious Injuries and Fatalities), sort of the Process Safety approach in Occupational Safety and Health Management. And like most C-Suite discussions of this nature it did not take long for them to realize they (personally) were not aware of these efforts to a level that they could speak to. They realized they needed to be more engaged “in what they were spending their $ on.” So they summoned the VP of EHS to join the discussion, and she was quick to pick her Top 5 fundamental efforts the company was utilizing globally.
I then asked them to identify the “safety critical” paths of these five (5) programs. For them to succeed in their implementation, this must occur within these five (5) programs. They began to see the light in “leading indicators”! We then began our “mapping” exercise in how these “safety critical paths” could be measured and what a reasonable GOAL would be for facility management teams to achieve and be held accountable. They began to understand my “bounced check” analogy, and the “safety snowball” really began to pick up speed and momentum. By the time we finished the 3rd program, the 4th and 5th programs took less than 45 minutes to establish the metrics. By the end of the two days, this C-Suite was on a roll in transforming how safety would be managed and measured and even began discussions on how the “bonus program” for managers could be revised to really drive change down to the front-line level. The last part of Day 2 was a discussion of how the EHS team members SUPPORT this shift and their role in being the “verifiers” of this new data stream. This organization was a former “Six Sigma” company, so they could recognize the need for data validation, called Gage R&R in Six Sigma, and how this was the role of the EHS team.
