A look at the degree of safety responsibility required at various levels of an organization
We’ve all heard it, most of us have said it and some of us have even said it more than once — “safety starts at the top.”
It’s not a difficult concept to understand. If the management team at the top of the organization doesn’t place safety on its agenda and in its vision for the organization, it simply won’t get done. If this is the start of safety, then let’s follow the path to the logical conclusion — where does safety finish? In other words, where does the real work of safety get done? Intention at the top of an organization will need to be supported by a lot of action to actually make it a reality for the people doing the work.
Key roles of key people in the executive office
If the CEO or president of a corporation is a great leader, then the people reporting directly to her will be clear on what’s important to that leader. The direct reports to the CEO (usually with titles such as vice-president or director) need to ensure, in their areas of responsibility, all who work there know what’s important.
The only way to effectively communicate and demonstrate the importance of safety is to hold people in the senior ranks accountable for managing safety. The best way to let someone know what is important to you is to first communicate what is important, then back it up by your actions.
Taking the time to discuss safety and to ask about safety and, most importantly to do safety activities, will make it clear to vice-presidents and their subordinates that this issue is important to the boss. Chief executive officers need to make vice- presidents accountable to them for creating safety in their area of control.
The middle management team
Middle management teams play a critical role in taking a significant part of their day to communicate and implement the mission, vision and values of top management. Making safety activities operational takes a great deal of planning, organizing, implementing and controlling. This group of middle managers is who will make safety happen. Setting out activity objectives and goals is how organizations decide what is going to be accomplished in any area.
Start with goals, such as, “by the end of the fiscal year we’d like 200,000 units sold.” Then the creativity really starts. We ask people to lay out activities to make sure the goals are met. For example, it may be suggested that a process be streamlined by pre-assembling the smaller parts before they are delivered to the paint booth. In my opinion, this is where some management teams fail miserably in creating safety. They set the wrong goals.
Many people set goals for what they don’t want to happen. Setting goals for what you don’t want to create means you’re not really managing the factors to create something. Setting goals for reducing injuries only serves to frustrate most of us. It’s much better to do things to create safety than to create a situation where there’s a lack of injury.
If I’ve learned anything through my hazard assessments, it’s that there are many dangers related to hand tools. I don’t have to rely on measuring hand injuries to know I’m managing safety. I really need to measure that my team is doing what it takes to work safely with hand tools. I will, however, know exactly why I don’t have any hand injures — it’s because my team made it happen.
I can also set out activities to ensure and measure my employees are wearing their eye protection, inspecting the condition of their tools, properly maintaining those tools, and updating their training. These are all positive activities I can establish and measure. If I do this well, I won’t have any injuries to count. If, over time, I see that my company is still experiencing injuries, I’ll need to try something different. I have not found the solution yet — but I will.
I once watched an assistant vice- president tell a top management team he was very proud of the results in reducing vehicle accidents and damage compared to the previous year. The charts clearly showed a 10 per cent reduction in damage claims and corresponding costs. This was a proud moment, until one of the vice-presidents asked how the reduction was accompished. The smile turned to panic when the assistant had no measurable data to show why they were safer.
The following year, they targeted the behaviours that caused the damage. They also interviewed staff on what procedures needed to change. They could describe in detail progress on why their damage claims were being reduced and could explain very well why the claims dropped by 40 per cent.
We need to create safety through our activities, not avoid losses through guesses and luck. The losses won’t happen if we make it safe.
Now we get closer to where safety really happens. Work happens with the employees that are most important to an organization, but typically make up the lowest point on the organization chart: Front line supervisors and their groups of employees. Here’s where “safe production” happens and where the smaller items get built. It is here where the most important safety activities are carried out.
When employees and their supervisors are doing safety activities, they are creating safety.
Supervisors and their crews
Through the last few decades, the role of first line supervisors has dramatically changed. The ratio of supervisors to employees has gone from one to a few to one to many. The nature of employment has dramatically changed. Employees no longer spend their 30-plus-year-careers with one employer.
The criteria for choosing the supervisor to do all the safety work has changed so drastically that the supervisor can no longer do it all. I seriously doubt they ever could.
Now that we’ve evolved, innovated our work and participated in problem solving to the front line workers, safety activities naturally need to fall to the people who do the production. Inspections, training, observations, hazard assessments all need to be done with, and by, our workers. I’m not sure how we ever thought it would work any other way.
Indeed, safety starts at the top, but to be successful it needs to permeate throughout the organization through activities done at every level and by everyone.
Alan D. Quilley is the author of The Emperor Has No Hard Hat – Achieving REAL Safety Results and the president of Safety Results, a Sherwood Park, Alta., OH&S consulting company. Alan can be reached at [email protected].
