Safety Culture in Industry
The safety culture of an organization is initially driven by management. The people-focused process starts with top-down management education to establish a protocol to effectively manage and build on the motivation instilled within each employee. A key component for boosting motivation is active participation. High-participating employees tend to be more satisfied with their jobs. They have a raised level of self-esteem, low role ambiguity, and a positive attitude which results in lower absenteeism and a better relationship with coworkers and management. Employees derive intrinsic value from active participation and have a greater contribution to the overall effectiveness of a safety-based program.
Employee empowerment is the key component to augment safety behavioral techniques. The management team takes on the role of facilitators to guide employees who each act as safety professionals. Knowledge is the cornerstone. All employees receive training on policies and procedures and are given full access to standards and regulations so that everyone has an equal understanding of pertinent regulations related to their jobs. Employees are given opportunities to actively engage in the process from safety committees to instructing training sessions. Those with supervisor responsibilities give each subordinate the authority to make decisions including conducting self worksite observations (audits), investigating incidences, and implementing corrective action (with some limitations). Tasks assigned to individuals are completed without re-assigning in the middle of the project to establish ownership. Upon completion of the task, positive reinforcement such as a pat-on-the-back is encouraged to motivate continued participation in the process. Positive tools may be introduced to improve the safety culture such as providing the National Safety Council’s Family & Health magazine to emphasize the importance of family in the safety decisions that we make.
To measure success, avoid using lagging indicators as the sole data source. OSHA incident/severity rates and insurance modification rates as compared to historical data offer some benefit, but they will only measure failure. If rates are below the industry average, we failed less than the average company. Leading indicators will help to identify program deficiencies before they become a near miss or worse an injury. Examples of leading indicators include, but are not limited to: employee surveys, percentage of attendance to required safety training, number of near-miss reports, workplace observation scores, etc. Unsafe or at-risk behavior can be observed and objectively measured. We can work toward and measure our successes rather than our failures with leading indicators and ultimately bring down our trailing or lagging indicators in the process.
By empowering employees to implement safe work practices including first-hand involvement in the safety process, the likelihood of incidents and injuries will be significantly reduced around our workplaces.
To provide a safe paperless mechanism to document field observations with scores and daily job briefings (eTailboard) without the need to pass on paper, try eSafeTrak, Inc.’s electronic tracking system. Employees simply use a phone, tablet, or computer in the field to complete detailed observations or eTailboard forms, hit send, and the data is logged on a secured cloud service for future easy access with report features for tracking and trending to see red flags or determine future training or equipment needs.