Workplace Safety Culture, It's No Small Thing - Posterous

Author: MAU Workforce Solutions

?Get product out the door, and be safe, too!? ordered Sam, Operations Manager at YoYo Express, at the end of the pre-shift meeting. Justin Time and Vera Careful stood up from their chairs and marched directly to the production floor to start their day.

Outside of the conference room, the two forklift operators could see the yoyo machines were wide open, and production operators were scrambling to keep them going full-steam ahead. It was Justin and Vera?s job to feed the insatiable appetite of the yoyo machines with raw material like strings, wood and plastic ? the goods that eventually became a yoyo.

Running to his forklift, Justin jumped into his seat casting aside his seatbelt. The forklift jerked forward and knocked a trash can out of the way, barely missing a pedestrian before it crashed into a wall. In the warehouse, Justin screeched to a stop, his forks on their way into position to lift a pallet of yoyo string. Peeling out in reverse, Justin sped past two stop signs to the machine he supported. He turned the corner with a loud screech, and his pallet of string slid off the forks right past an electrical panel and slid perfectly into position. The machine operator high-fived Justin, and the rest of the operators on the machine cheered loudly, ? Just in time!!?

Across the hallway, Vera was stopped at an intersection waiting for some pedestrians to safely cross in front of her. She thought about an item on the forklift inspection sheet that she wanted to recheck later. Looking at her path ahead and checking to make sure her way was clear, she slowly advanced her forklift forward, beeping her horn and making sure she established eye contact with the quality engineer walking toward her. Finally making it to her machine, Vera noticed two machine operators disapprovingly shaking their heads and poking their fingers at their watches. Vera stopped the lift truck and lowered the forks and carefully placed her pallet of string into place and backed away slowly. Operations Manager, Sam, happened to be standing close by and sternly commanded Vera, ? Hurry up! We?ve got yoyo?s to get out the door!?

Feeling scolded, Vera carefully drove away wondering how in the world she was going to keep up with the yoyo machines and stay safe at the same time.

In this story Justin ignored his own safety and the safety of others to keep up with production demands and was rewarded with high fives and cheers. On the other hand, Vera was scolded for not keeping up. Ironically, she performed her job safely. The management of this fictitious yoyo plant had set up a system that focused mainly on production and ignored safety in action. In fact, being safe here was sometimes cause for punishment, especially if it cost production. Further, the culture in this operation encouraged safety in their pre-shift meeting with an order to be safe; however, the activities in the production floor did not comply. Yoyo Express practiced safety in word but not in deed. In other words, management was not truly committed and employees followed suit, not buying into a process for which there was no reward.

The culture of a company may be the most important characteristic that contributes to the success or failure of an organization. This precept continues to be reaffirmed to me through my daily interactions with various clients and perspective clients at?MAU Workforce Solutions. Safety Scholars sometimes refer to the safety aspect of business culture as ?safety leadership.? The primary components of safety leadership are management commitment and employee involvement. Mastering these two immensely important cultural components will rocket an organization to world-class levels of safety achievement and will positively benefit other business performance indicators.

Safety professionals, by virtue of their role, are tasked with the often-times, chaotic responsibility of convincing the folks working with them that company goals can be achieved without anyone getting hurt. Sound easy? Stay with me! This persuasive exercise involves getting management to embrace the responsibility of establishing safety as a value and not just a priority or flavor of the month. Additionally, management must adopt the notion that it is their responsibility to abolish danger from the workplace and not a task one delegates to the facility safety representative. On the flip side, a safety professional must also convince employees, including the hard-core skeptics, that their involvement in safety benefits all aspects of their employment experience.

The YoYo Express scenario presents a culture void of safety leadership, an environment framed by distrust of management, especially with regard to safety. This distrust is difficult to repair, as operators have spent years hearing the command to be safe but not encouraged or rewarded for doing so in their jobs. So what can be done to ensure management commitment and employee involvement in safety?

1.?Make safety one of your core values and live it.?Safety must shine through all you do in all facets of your business. More than talk, it must be action from the top of the organization all the way down.

2. Appoint the highest-ranking officer in the facility to lead the safety committee. This doesn?t mean that he/she walks away with all the action items; rather, he/she provides leadership, resources and sponsorship.

3. Involve all levels of the organization in the committee, and establish safety programs and tools that are engineered to root out and eliminate hazards. These hazard-eliminating programs should involve those pushing brooms all the way up to the person signing pay checks.

4. Leaders of the organization must practice what they preach about safety and prove that nothing is more important. No lip service here; leaders must add safety action to their encouraging words.

If these suggestions coming from a safety guy seem weighty and bold, take a moment to consider that high-achieving safety performance reciprocates success to other measured performance indicators like production, quality and employee relations to name a few. If the workplace is safe, people feel more secure in their jobs and, hence, are happier at work and become more focused on their tasks. As a result, the organization becomes more efficient, produces higher quality product and the benefit translates to stronger financial health which may lead to healthier margins and greater sales positioning and on and on and on? Doesn?t safety feel good all of the sudden!

If management commitment and employee involvement in the safety program lead to overall organizational wellbeing that permeates all levels of the business, safety culture can?t be ignored! Believe me, I understand the work involved in changing culture. But it?s worth it and once safety becomes a value in your organization, the return will be great! So again I say, ?Safety culture is no small thing!?

For a more comprehensive conversation and further insight on safety leadership and culture I recommend the following three articles contained in Professional Safety Magazine, Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers.

Turnbeaugh, Treasa M. ?Improving Business Outcomes.? Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers March 2010: page 41- 49. Print.

Grenny, Jeremy and David Maxfield. ?Five Crucial Conversations that Drive Workplace Safety.? Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers August 2011: 24 ? 26. Print.

Dunlap, E. Scott. ?Safety Leadership Finding a Common Ground.? Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers September 2011: 42 ? 49. Print.

About the Author, Rob Loose,?MAU Workforce Solutions?Safety Manager:
Safety Professional with Manufacturing, HR and Health Care management experience, Rob has worked for?MAU Workforce Solutions?since 2006 supporting both HR and operations functions. A 1998 graduate of Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, Rob now calls North Augusta, SC home where he lives with his wife, two kids and dog. He is proud to work for a company that values the health and safety of clients and employees alike.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/human-resources-articles/workplace-safety-culture...

About the Author

MAU Workforce Solutions?provides business solutions that give our client partnerships a competitive edge through designed processes and our greatest asset ? People ? in the fields of Professional Recruiting, Commercial Staffing, Outsourcing Solutions, and Outplacement Services. MAU is a Minority-Owned Company, is based in Augusta, GA and has 10 locations throughout the U.S.: Augusta, GA, Lagrange, GA, Aiken, SC, Anderson, SC, Charleston, SC, Greenville, SC, Spartanburg, SC, Jacksonville, FL, Chattanooga, TN, and Chicago, IL.

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