Kevin Burns Blog

Want to know how top companies get better work from their teams? Supervisors who build real connections with team members create safer workplaces, higher productivity, and employees who stay longer. Learn simple ways to help supervisors move beyond just giving orders to building relationships that help the whole business succeed.

(Bonus: download a free resource, Supervisors & Safety Culture ebook)

Provide a clear and concise vision of where your crew is headed.

What's your vision for safety? And don't say "no one gets hurt." That's not a vision -  it is a hope strategy - fingers crossed that no one actually does get hurt.

Face it, if you're a supervisor, foreman, manager or executive, you're in a leadership role. You're in charge. That means the responsibility for the performance and safety of the team is yours.

As a leader, there is one thing you need to get right, and it will solve problems in so many other areas: you need to provide your people with a clear vision and direction. You need to tell them where you're headed. Every member of your team wants to know where the team is going.

You may cover the check-boxes but you need to ensure employees are going to give safety their attention and focus.

Is yours a check-box safety culture? Or a check-in safety culture? What’s the difference? A check-box safety culture is just what the name implies. You go through the checklists and check off the items that you have completed.

Have you fallen into the trap of making statements instead of asking questions?

Selling safety to crews can seem overwhelming. Getting your people to see and understand what you see and understand can be frustrating, especially when you don’t achieve the success you think you should have.

You need to connect with employees in driving the things that are important to them.

You feel like you’re saying the right things in safety. Some days your safety performance is great. Other days, you wonder if your team was listening at all. And it frustrates you that just when you seem to be making steps forward, a dumb little incident shows up.

This is where you can change it up.

You need a safety message that resonates, at the right time, saying the right thing so that every employee is working toward common goals in safety. And the goals are not numbers. Stop pitching numbers to your people. Numbers don’t inspire better performance.

What employees want from the job can change your culture.

In my last post (When Employees Don't Give You Safety Performance), I presented an overview of what employees want from their supervisors and immediate managers. This time around, we are going to take a look at what employees want from their jobs. Because if they don’t get what they want from their job, why would you expect them to give their best effort, especially in safety?

If they’re not giving you safety, it’s because you’re not giving them what they want.

To paraphrase a quote, the secret to getting what you want is to help enough other people get what they want. Zig Ziglar said that. He wasn’t wrong. Help enough other people get a win for themselves and they are more likely to help you get your win.

Effective workplaces are those places where employees feel valued, cared for and protected.

Without getting into long descriptions, good workplace safety culture is the result of attitudes and personal and corporate values aligning. If apathy in the workplace exists, little care will be given to safety. When the quality of the work is “good enough,” apathy in safety exists. If employees think it's a lousy place to work, then safety will take a back seat. Poor safety attitudes will impede becoming a top performer. That reflects in both safety and financial performance. A broken safety culture will have an impact on overall corporate performance.

Your job isn’t to enforce the rules as much as it is to build your team’s performance within the rules.

Top down. That’s how your safety program has probably always been handled. Everything rolls down from the front-office to the front-line.

Don’t waste your one-on-one time with your people enforcing rules.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. When employees buy-in to safety, you don’t need to police them anymore. Where you once spent a great deal of time on enforcement, you can now replace with coaching and mentoring. Trust me when I say, coaching and mentoring is infinitely more satisfying.