A recipe for shaking up the safety status quo

Many organizations claim that safety is the responsibility of everyone. However, if Manufacturing calls the Safety Department when there is an obvious hazard and corresponding correction, the words don’t matter.

Your organizational culture is probably “Safety is responsible for safety.” That is not healthy for any number of reasons, including the fact that you cannot be successful if operations management and supervisors call the Safety Department when guards are off, oil is on the floor, someone didn’t lock out, etc. Floor personnel should be responsible and accountable for safety.

If you are a safety professional and your organizational culture needs to change, here a few steps to consider:

• Talk to the CEO or highest level person at your location. Get his / her concurrence that they are responsible for leading safety.
• Clarify that you are there to support them – don’t ask for support.
• Ask the top executive what they would like done that is not being done now.
• You will probably note many gaps as you listen.
• Tell them that you will get back to them with a plan.

The plan will include your analysis of non-value added work to be eliminated and a proposal to redistribute necessary safety functions, allowing time for the new initiatives. In your plan:

• Carefully analyze whether time spent on floor audits and being a “safety cop”, creating reports or other administrative tasks really add value for the prevention of injury and illness.
• Identify the non-value added things that should be eliminated.
• Lay out a matrix for all the necessary inspections and audits that must be performed (e.g. PPE audits, fork trucks, chains and hoists).
• Consider if others in operations, maintenance, or other staffs are capable of performing the work.
• Develop a matrix of how the load could be redistributed.
• Identify how much time you could free up and how you would use the time for planning and implementation of the executive’s initiatives.
• Present your plan and make adjustments based on their critique.

Your scenario may play out differently but the goal is the same – serve top management and make others directly and personally responsible for safety. When communicating changes to the management team, ask the CEO to voice these words of wisdom to the rest of the organization:

• “If you are not sure if you have a hazard, call safety.”
• “If you have a hazard and are not sure what to do, call safety.”
• “If you have a hazard and know what to do, fix it – don’t call safety.”

Remember, the CEO or top operations person at your location is your primary internal customer. Make sure you are giving them the support they deserve.