Loading ...Part 1: How To Create Ownership Within Your Safety Culture
“This is the way we’ve always done things”. “You better put on your PPE or the safety rep. is going to write you up”. If these comments can be heard at your workplace, you are facing an ownership problem. These folks see safety as something “they” want me to do, not something that “I” want for myself and my co-workers. So what can we do? The solution lies in three simple steps, which we have found great organizations do anytime they try to build a sense of ownership among their employees. However, let’s first look at how motivation affects behavior.
In this post we’re going to focus on how we can influence change by targeting personal motivation and how we impact the motivation of others. Your goal should be to create a culture in which people not only abide by their organization’s safety programs, but also see those programs as their own. I once had someone ask me why we should care if employees buy-in to safety, because, according to this particular skeptic, “Safety is a condition of employment.” The best answer can be found in this short anecdote.
In the early 1900s there was a very skilled Italian sculptor that decided to move to New York City in hopes of making it big. He soon found that selling his sculptures to the local galleries was nearly impossible. So, to make ends meet, he took a job as a mason for a local construction company. For months on end, he carved half circles and diagonal lines into 4 foot by 4 foot blocks of granite. Eventually, he began to hate his new life. Not only had he not made it as a sculptor, but he had fallen so low that all he did was carve half circles and diagonal lines day after day. He decided to take a walk one day to ponder his plight.
As he walked through an unfamiliar part of the city, he saw a newly built office building in the distance. It was the most beautiful sight that he had seen since arriving in America. As he got closer to this masterpiece, the detail become evident to his unsuspecting eyes. As he stood in front of the building, he began to weep. You see, this entire building was made of 4 foot by 4 foot granite blocks with the most beautiful designs on them – half circles and diagonal lines. This was his creation. His dreams of being an artist had not been broken. Rather, he was the victim of a common management flaw. The fact is, we care a great deal about things once we understand “what’s in it for me”.
So how can we go from showing employees “what’s in it for them” to their taking ownership in our safety culture? We have found that the best organizations follow three common steps.
The first step is to create a vision statement. This can come in many forms, but ultimately a great vision statement should tell people where you want to go and how you want to get there. For instance, “Our goal is to have an incident free quarter (where you want to go) by eliminating hazards, communicating any risks that may still be present, and holding one another accountable to our safety policies and procedures (how you’re going to get there). Once you have your vision statement created, make it visible everywhere your people work. That’s step number one.
In our next post we will talk about steps 2 and 3. Step 2 will focus on how we can transform a vision statement into to the driving force of the organization’s safety culture, and step 3 will address how we can motivate people to behave safely by using our vision statement.
Until then, continue your safety journey with great passion and always remember: The ONLY reason we stress safety is because it’s the right thing to do.
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Michael
I hope that one of the next two steps is to “service” the mission statement. I have experienced two situations recently where the CEO of an Australian company spoke at a conference about how safety was a core value and how she was. She is a leader in safety and directly involved but her employees in the audience were shaking their heads because the safety culture she espoused was not as widespread through the company structure as she believed.
The other situation was a meeting with a regional CEO and International CEO where they were unaware that employees in regional offices and undertaking shiftwork had not been integrated into the corporation. In fact the shiftworkers had not been informed of the CEO visits until the last minute.
Leadership (a most dubiously-applied concept in my mind) and vision statements may “come from the top” but they do not flow by themselves to the four corners of a company. They must be worked on, almost as a full time mission.
Vision statements have been promoted in some many corporations over the last decade in companies that have fallen over through mismanagement that they have become a bit of a joke in most circumstances. Nothing kills motivation quicker than hypocrisy.
Lastly, any vision statement must accept and mention that the principal aim of any company is to make money. To omit this reality immediately shows that the statement is not grounded and si simply management “BS”.
Well said Kevin. This is not an all-encompassing vision statement that I am speaking of. Instead it is directly tied to safety and the safety culture. You must be careful not to mention financial gains in your language about safety. It tends to take out the human factor and comes off as self-serving from management. However, you are exactly right in that regards. The last data that I found stated that a lost-time accident will cost an organization $60,000 directly and could be tripled that in the “soft dollars”.
I think you will see the servicing of the vision statement in the next two steps. Thanks for the comment.
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