March/April 2003
In the September/October 2002 issue, I reviewed the 15 essential points of an effective safety program. Here, I continue exploring each of those points in greater detail, with the second point being the importance of employee involvement in any safety program.
It’s a fact that workers get injured far more frequently than managers. That makes sense because workers are on the occupational front lines, dealing constantly with equipment, tools, and an environment that’s far more dangerous than an office.
That’s why safety directors—or any other managers, for that matter—aren’t the most appropriate people to lead the charge for establishing an effective safety program.
As someone with 30 years of safety experience, I can tell you that’s true. One time, I remember, a worker compared me to the individuals who are hired to be mourners at funerals. That told me a lot. Another person said that my job was similar to a cheerleader at a junior varsity football game. The players on the field are too busy competing to listen to our cheers, while the spectators see us as minor entertainment between plays. That also taught me a lesson.
The lesson? Safety directors have their place—for instance, they can be effective at providing the guidance and structure for a safe working environment—but the most important directors of a safety program are the workers themselves.
Employees must actively participate in all aspects of their company’s safety program, beginning with the goal-setting, planning, and implementation steps and continuing through training and even enforcement of the safety rules. Here, I’ll focus on the first three aspects—goal-setting, planning, and implementation.
I received the most meaningful explanation for setting goals from a fire-rescue instructor during my rookie training. It came during ladder-climbing training. His instructions were, “Your first goal is not to climb to the top of the ladder. Your first goal is for your team to keep the base of the ladder on firm ground. Then you know that the top is reachable.”
That same philosophy applies to setting goals for your company’s safety program. It’s easy for a safety director to set a goal of no lost-time injuries. It’s another matter for the workers to achieve that goal. Before you set goals for your program, you need to involve your workers—all of them. First, explain to them the rationale behind implementing a safety program—the financial reasons, the productivity reasons, and—most importantly—the personal reasons.
Then ask for volunteers to serve on your company’s safety group, which you can call your Safety Board of Directors or Executive Task Force on Safety. I personally don’t like the term Safety Committee anymore. It’s an old and worn phrase that, to most employees, sounds as exciting as watching the movie version of the dictionary.
Whatever your safety group is called, make sure it includes at least one representative from each work area in your facility.
Before setting safety goals, you need to identify the safety weak points in your operations. Your safety director shouldn’t be the only one creating this list of safety problems. After all, no one knows the safety concerns in your operations better than your workers, so your Safety Board should be actively involved in creating the list.
To come up with the best list, one effective approach is to have board members inspect work areas other than their own. You’ll be surprised what safety trouble spots a new pair of eyes can find.
After compiling this list, your Safety Board can set goals for addressing the safety problems and plan how to achieve those goals. The best approach is to start off with goals that can be attained easily and quickly. Any coach will tell you to never start off training camp with the goal of an undefeated season. That would make the first loss a failure of the overall goal as well as a personal failure for every member of the team—quite demoralizing. Instead, suggest that your workers set an initial goal that they believe is a positive step and that could be attained quickly. For example, each member of your Safety Board could set the goal of determining how well employees in their work area understand the company’s lockout policy and pointing out where the lockout devices are located. Any gaps in a worker’s knowledge could be filled on the spot.
Once this first goal is accomplished, the Safety Board then has one “win” under its belt and can look forward confidently to the next one.
As the initial short-term goals are achieved, ask your Safety Board members to discuss what they learned from accomplishing the goals. Through this process, they will become more familiar with pinpointing safety concerns and setting attainable goals.
Planning then becomes establishing broader goals that are reachable. In the implementation phase, the board members then work to get the rest of the employees to buy into these broader goals and personally commit to helping achieve them. In other words, your Safety Board steadies the ladder while everyone climbs.
—Mike Mattia, director of risk management for ReMA
In the September/October 2002 issue, I reviewed the 15 essential points of an effective safety program. Here, I continue exploring each of those points in greater detail, with the second point being the importance of employee involvement in any safety program.