In nearly 30 years of working with industrial companies, almost every single one has admitted the same thing. They have a communications problem, a departmental silo problem, or heaven help them, both.
You've tried the workshops. You've run the surveys. You've rolled out the initiatives. Employee engagement still isn't where it needs to be. And you can't build your safety culture without engaged employees. Here's the question nobody in the engagement industry wants you to ask.
You gave them the title. You gave them the schedule, the paperwork, and the HR contact number. But there is one thing most organizations never give their supervisors when they promote them. And it is the only thing that actually matters.
Your safety numbers are connected to your turnover numbers. Your engagement numbers are connected to your absenteeism numbers. Quality issues are connected to your succession planning. With apologies to Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics, there is a single thread that connects them all. Find out why your individual initiatives are only getting modest results.
Your supervisors work hard. No one is questioning that. But hard work and effective leadership are two different things, and confusing them is costing your operation. This post breaks down the gap between a busy supervisor and an effective one, and what it takes to close it.
The safety program doesn't build a safety culture. Only your supervisors can do that. And they can only do it when they have the right foundation. Here are the four pillars that make the difference.
Most companies treat safety culture like it is its own separate problem. It is not. It rises and falls with every metric on your dashboard. And every one of those metrics has the same root cause.
I've been sitting on this for months. Something that's been bugging me about who gets access to our programs — and who doesn't. Today I did something about it.
Your company has a detailed plan for maintaining every piece of equipment on your floor. You schedule it, budget for it, and treat it like a non-negotiable. But the people who oversee the operation of that equipment? They get nothing. Here's why that has to change — and what it costs you every single day that it doesn't.
