Improve the individuals and the organization as a whole gets better. Improve personal skills and the collective safety culture improves.
Safety meetings, should solve problems and make the organization better. They are not meant to bore, to disengage or to frustrate. But they do. Meetings don’t have to entertain. But there is nothing wrong with entertaining employees and making work fun, even safety. Fun meetings engage employees and increase uptake.
Using a meeting to fix a problem is easy to understand. You concentrate on a single issue, engage discussion on a single topic and you create solutions to the problem. Simple. But, making an organization better? Well, that’s tougher to define.
Performance, culture, communication, caring and teamwork all make an organization better. Improve the individuals and the organization as a whole gets better. Improve personal skills and the collective culture improves.
But, how often do safety meetings talk about caring and teamwork? How often are personal values or personal leadership skills discussed.
Safety meetings go over inspections, incidents, statistics and procedures. But what if the safety meeting didn't focus on those things? What if, for a change, you held a singular-purpose meeting? What if you solicited input from every attendee? It's important that every employee has a voice. When employees know that someone is going to call on them, they pay attention. They engage. They prepare. They take part. And in that moment, your organization is already better.
Here are five conversations you should commit to having in your safety meetings:
1What does the word "accountability" mean to you? Open the floor up to discussion. Call on meeting attendees, even the hard-assed veterans. Ask them to talk about accountability; what it means to them and how they would show it on the job. Task them with discussing what accountability would look like in a specific incident. Reporting, JHAs, teamwork; they are all accountability in action. Help them see it by letting them discover it for themselves.
2How do you prove your convictions for safety off the job? This is another open discussion. They could talk about how they PPE-up to cut the lawn at home. They could discuss how they have mini-tailgates with their kids before they go out bike riding. Maybe they do walk-arounds on their own vehicles and do light and signal checks. Get them to talk about the things they have learned at work that they take home. Make the unconscious conscious. Those who resist safety will feel pressured to get with the program.
3Find a quote by a famous person that resonates with you. This is a homework assignment that is easy. It’s done on Google. All they have to do is discover a quote by someone famous that makes them want to be better. Ask them to write it down and hand it in at the meeting. Then, read out each quote and ask the owner to stand. Some will be serious. Some will be funny. Some will be inspiring. Make safety mean something personal.
4What's the best thing that we do in safety in this company? This is a discussion again but not for everyone. The company has to be making strides to improve its safety performance before you ask this question. This question forces attendees to think about the things they and the company are doing right. It is a positive reinforcement of the safety program.
5What is the one thing that would prevent you from working safely? And how can we fix that? This discussion can go two ways depending on the safety culture. If the culture is us-versus-them, this could end up a blame discussion against management. If there is a teamwork culture, you will uncover mental barriers to choosing safety in the moment. You need honesty to carry this one off. But when you do, the organization will improve as a result.
Each one of these are an entire safety meeting on their own. Each could stand up as a safety meeting theme. Everything discussed or presented would reinforce the safety theme. Stop talking about statistics and reports. Instead, start talking about the characteristics that make strong safety performers. Make them think and engage and take part in your safety meeting.
Stop the drive-by safety meetings. Stop allowing them to be spectators in safety. Encourage them to be part of the safety program, not to only adhere to it. Besides, participants live longer.
If you need some extra help with your safety meetings, download my free e-book, The Perfect Safety Meeting.
