Safety Culture Plus

That assumption of most managers in the past is a good place to start. From experience in working in assembly line type work places I remember that most of the managers didn’t really give a rip about safety performance as long as the quota of the day’s production was met. They stood up on Monday mornings and said all the right things about being safe, but the underlying message was production. There was no reflection of the pain and suffering of an injured employee. Safety meetings were really just production pep talks. And employees got hurt. And an employee getting hurt in this line of business was the “cost of doing business”. They didn’t figure in the implication of that cost to the business. Money was just pulled out of the emergency room fund (direct cost) to take care of the injury and the whistle blew again to signal the end of break and go back to work. The indirect cost of that “accident” was never considered as the “cost of doing business”. There was then no management commitment in the safety of the employees. Managers managed the day’s production not the day’s business. And, I believe, that is the difference of the commitment.

(I’ve got “Ed’s Sawmill” in mind and I think that is where the creation of OSHA got its start.)

I think that in today’s businesses, the commitment of a manager in their safety system is very critical. The first person to realize this involvement – one way or the other – is the employee. Just how valuable am I to this business? Is my safety important while I help this business make money? These are very legitimate questions of an employee who is working to provide a living to his family. The answers to these questions probably will effect my commitment to the business. After all, we’re all in this business to make money – the employee and the business, and, in times of keen competition and low profit margins, loss control may contribute more to profits.

When a manager is obviously committed to the safety system of a business it shows to an employee that I, as an employee, am important to the success of the business. And this importance will probably effect the employee’s commitment to the success of the business. I think that more and more of today’s managers realize that it takes more than mandated requirements to drive the safety process.

 Management’s commitment in the safety of its employees makes a huge difference.

Bottom line is if management involves the employees of the company, it makes the employees feel valuable. The employees will feel that they make a difference in the success or even failure of the company. Managers, by now, should or must realize that theory X type management is an old thing and will not fit well at all in today’s working environment. That is a given with production. Now, the same theory has to be applied with the safety system of a company.

I thought it a very profound statement – something that’s even run through my head before, being in the safety business – How can employees come to care about safety as much as the managers do? And it was well explained here – you have to develop a good safety culture. And favorable cultures do not just happen. They are slowly and methodically molded over a period of time.

Defining a value system in a company’s safety standards is very much the first step. Involving the employees, taking away the numbers system, insisting that those employees be individuals, is the most important step. That step sets the culture. And that step must be made by the managers.