Safety Culture – Management Leadership and Employee Participation

Is there a simple method to increase employee safety awareness, reduce injuries and loss-producing events, reduce operating costs, improve overall productivity, and improve employee morale?

The answer is yes! There are many ways to accomplish this, and as a business leader, you can address this challenge simply by developing and managing your security process more effectively. This will lead to an effective security culture as everyone begins to trust the system.

The question: How do I go about doing this? There is a simple answer! No matter how sophisticated you think your security efforts are, your system can always be improved. Our discussion will include all organizations, no matter how small.

To understand where you stand in terms of compliance, you may want to consider implementing some resources to assess your current system and see if mandatory legal requirements are upheld by regulatory requirements. In the United States, the Federal Occupational Safety Act (OSHA) states that “Employers must provide a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees.”

OSHA’s current format is written in a way that breaks the safety process into a number of separate programs. Therefore, this series of articles will briefly discuss each section of the Guide and the enhanced benefits you can expect from implementation.

As we continue with our series, we will provide an explanation of how to implement each requirement. In addition, we will include some useful tools to help you start or improve your security system. Therefore, the basics presented in this series are intended to cover all industries and organizations regardless of size. You will find that once you understand the basics and begin to implement these concepts, you may want to expand and/or improve the security system to meet your organization. Program Elements You should be aware that there are consistent elements associated with each OSHA Voluntary Safety process. We will discuss these elements in more detail throughout this series of articles.

In Voluntary Programs, OSHA outlines five elements that will help you create a successful management system. For simplicity, we have divided these elements into six sections. Although management and employee involvement are complementary and form the core of an effective safety process, we want to make sure everyone understands that there is still a clear and distinct difference between operation management and employee involvement.

Compliance with OSHA regulations is an important goal. However, if you develop a successful management system, this is no longer a problem. In this article we will discuss, what we believe to be the core elements in any successful security system, Management Leadership and Employee Involvement. Managerial Leadership Top-down managerial leadership is the most important part of any process. Lip service is not going to work for you. If management demonstrates commitment, provides the appropriate motivation and resources to manage safety, an effective system can be developed and maintained. According to OSHA, this demonstration of leadership must include the following elements that are consistent with an effective program:

• Establish the program responsibilities of managers, supervisors, and employees for safety and hold them accountable for carrying out these responsibilities.
• Provide managers, supervisors and employees with the authority, access to relevant information, training and resources they need to carry out their security responsibilities.
• Identify at least one manager, supervisor, or employee to receive and respond to reports of safety conditions and, where appropriate, to initiate corrective action.

If employees can see the emphasis senior management places on safety, they are more likely to emphasize it in their own work and personal activities. It is important that management and supervision follow established safety rules and work practices, setting a good example for all employees.

Managers must show their commitment and involvement in other ways. For example, conducting plant-wide safety inspections; personally stop potentially hazardous activities or conditions until the hazards can be corrected or controlled; personal monitoring of safety performance; and hold managers and employees accountable for their actions.

Elements of managerial leadership must also include ensuring the same safety of all hired employees. Just remember that management must demonstrate their commitment. Demonstration actually means “do what I do.” This is an important concept no matter what you are trying to achieve, always “do what you do and talk what you talk”. Remember: actions speak louder than words.

Below are some basic elements where management must show leadership in providing a safe workplace. Safety Policy By developing a clear policy statement supported by management, you help everyone involved in the workplace understand the importance of safety in relation to other organizational values. By clearly communicating the policy to all employees, you ensure that there is no confusion when a conflict arises between two of these values, such as productivity, quality, and safety. This is important as it lays the groundwork for a successful process. Goals and Objectives You should make your overall security policy as specific as possible by setting clear goals and objectives for the organization. These goals and objectives set the framework for assigning specific responsibilities. Each employee must be able to view her work activities in terms of progress toward stated goals and achievement of objectives.

Don’t get sucked into writing a document for a policy statement and expecting employees to remember the rules. For example, I was involved in several situations where there was a 2-page written policy statement, a 40-page set of work rules, and department-specific work rules. What is needed is a simple statement that sets the stage and something everyone can remember. Assignment of Responsibility Everyone in the workplace should have some sort of responsibility for safety. Clear assignments help avoid overlaps or gaps in accomplishing required activities. In particular, you must ensure that the security professional is not assigned a line responsibility that properly pertains to line management and supervision. This line of responsibility would include functions such as supervising and evaluating employee performance in areas of safety, providing on-the-job training in safe work practices and any required personal protective equipment (PPE), and encouraging employee participation in activities. of security.

These responsibilities should flow logically from the goals and objectives that have been established to meet the overall goals of the management system. Provision of authority Any assignment of responsibility must be accompanied by adequate authority and resources. The latter includes properly trained and equipped employees, as well as sufficient operating and capital funds. Accountability Once you’ve assigned responsibility and provided the appropriate authority and resources to all employees, you need to follow up by holding those employees accountable for accomplishing what they’ve been asked to do. Accountability is crucial in helping employees understand how critical their individual performances are, allowing them to take personal responsibility for their actions and performance. Employee Participation In any successful security system, employees must have the opportunity to participate in the establishment, implementation and evaluation of the security process.

Employee involvement provides the means by which they can develop and/or express their safety commitment to themselves and/or their co-workers. To meet and improve employee engagement, management must implement some form of the following elements:

• Communicate regularly with all employees on safety matters.
• Provide employees with access to information relevant to the security system.
• Provide ways for employees to be involved in hazard identification and assessment, hazard prioritization, safety training, and management system evaluation.
• Establish procedures in which employees can report work-related incidents promptly and ways in which they can make recommendations on appropriate solutions to control identified hazards.
• Provide quick responses to reports and recommendations.

It is important to remember that, under an effective management system, employers do not discourage employees from reporting safety hazards and making recommendations about incidents or hazards, or from participating in the safety process.

Sources:

“Developing an Effective Safety Culture: A Leadership Approach” by James Roughton

Occupational Hazard Analysis by James Roughton and Nathan Crutchfield.

The Security Program Management Guidelines, published in the Federal Register (54 FR 3908) on January 26, 1989