Kevin Burns Blog

To build a successful, strong and supportive safety culture requires a foundation of employee buy-in. 

Safety has, traditionally, set itself up based on the compliance model of checks and balances. It is then presented to employees as paperwork and meetings. Then the focus gets placed on reporting and tracking. It’s difficult to get employees to buy-in to a program of checks, forms and paperwork. Employees can't see what's in it for them. As a result, buy-in to safety is marginal.

Companies re-brand and re-launch consumer products in an effort to be relevant again. Laundry detergent, new models of car, the latest iPhone. They're "new and improved." These companies give their old products a new spin with new improvements. And they make sales.

To build a successful safety culture requires a foundation of employee buy-in. Without it, you will spend large amounts of money and never achieve great success. But like any consumer product, before it can be bought, there has to be a benefit to the consumer. They have got to see how this product makes their life better. When they find it, that's when they buy-in.

Those who complain about using marketing to advance their safety programs just don't understand its value.

The safety purists hate the idea of marketing safety. But then, they object to anything that doesn`t involve process, procedure, the law, or enforcement. They oppose the idea that safety needs to be marketed or sold. They complain that marketing of safety is crass and fluff. Those who complain about using marketing to advance their safety programs just don't understand its value. Better to condemn than to admit you don’t understand right?

Marketing, although a science, is not that difficult to comprehend.

Brand Choice 

What is it that makes a family choose one brand of laundry soap over another? What is it that makes a person choose one brand of truck over another? Android or iPhone? Apple or Microsoft? Starbucks or Tim Hortons? OK, that last reference is decidedly Canadian. The same question could be asked of employees. What makes one employee buy-in to safety and another to simply tolerate safety rules? 

You don’t instill a positive safety culture by settling for performance within the average.

The best organizations give world-class safety performance. They don't do it with a mediocre effort, mediocre standards or mediocre safety people. They do it by surpassing industry average targets, a focused engagement and with safety people on top of their games. They search out and employ supervisors and managers who set a higher standard for themselves. They seek out those who want to inspire their own crews to be better, to reach farther, to achieve at a higher level.

You don’t build championship teams by shooting right for the middle of industry averages. You don’t instill a positive safety culture by settling for performance within the average. If you want to lead, you have to do not just what others are not doing, but by doing what they’re not even prepared to do.

World-class safety is driven by having higher standards than the average. Higher standards drive a greater effort to set themselves apart. Greater effort is driven by high-performing safety people. World-class safety is not achieved by a mediocre effort, standards or people who don’t seek to be exceptional. Without exceptional people, you're shooting right for mediocrity. You will not, and I repeat, NOT get there by luck.

When you commit to the safety of employees, you commit to the empowerment of employees. You commit to unlocking their personal leadership capacity.

Compliance safety leveled the playing field and ensured some basic minimum standards for workers to remain safe on the job. It meant getting employees to follow protocols even if they didn't mesh with the employee's own personal values. Compliance safety did what it was supposed to do. It was good while it lasted. But the days of a corporate culture built around compliance-based safety are numbered.

Today, there are a lot of discussions on safety; most of it on the process-side. Never before in history have we had better processes and procedures in safety. Never before in history have there been more certified safety professionals. So why isn’t the industry at Zero? Because safety is not a process problem. It is a people problem. The processes work - but only when people use them.

Trying to run a safety program on rules enforcement is meeting with stiff opposition. Today’s worker has no appetite for being constricted by rules.

Safety is at a crossroads; where the old safety cop is being forced to give way to the new safety leader. It's a bit of a bumpy ride right now but one that we will be over in a few years. Safety leaders will emerge to begin coaching better safety performance from their teams. Safety cops in future will have a tough time finding work. The market is changing and so are the players.

This year (2015), finds that over 75% of the North American workforce is either over the age of 50 or under the age of 30:

• Millennials (Generation Y - under age 32), comprise 45% of the total workforce.
• Baby Boomers (over age 50) make up only 31% of the market. And Boomers are retiring in droves.
• As Generation X (21%) moves into the more senior positions of influence, they are siding more with the Millennials. Gen X understands them better.

The “management” part of safety management is as important as the “safety” part.

It’s no surprise that safety managers spend a great deal of time staying current on safety legislation. In fact, they invest hours upon hours every month into ensuring they understand rules, processes and procedures for safety. What they don’t do though, is invest an equal amount of time in developing their management and communications skills. It is safety management after all. It’s two equal parts - safety and management.

As a result of little attention paid to the management side of skills development, here is a list of seven things that safety managers, supervisors, and advisors do wrong when it comes to managing the safety program and building respect with employees:

A safety leader is someone who influences good decisions and positive behaviors.

Safety leadership has nothing to do with being a manager or supervisor. You don’t have to hold a safety management position to be a safety leader. A safety leader is someone who influences good decisions and positive behaviors. Anyone can do it if they are willing to put the work in. And the benefits are huge: to you and the people you lead.

Here are five ways that you can start to improve your own safety leadership skills right away.