With all the information available in books and online it can be daunting to even think about how you one person can move your company's safety culture!
I have had many first days on new projects and at companies and thought wow, where do I even start with this.
It is scary when you see workers taking shortcuts, not following procedures and putting each other at risk.
What worries me more is when I see supervisors and management encouraging this type of behaviour.
So the real question is what can you do to change the situation.
The first step is to spend some time getting to know who the people are, what is driving them and where the current safety culture is coming from.
Safety culture can come from multiple different places but a good place to start is in the leadership group. If your upper management is pushing safety but it drops off as it moves down then you can look for where it is being lost in translation.
If your upper management team isn’t bought in then you know where you need to start.
In this video I highlight how I would work on changing the safety culture.
Now that you know how to build your plan and implement it, you're ready to tackle the task of being a Great Safety Leader and affecting change at your company.
Some things we learned that we think will help you out are:
- Start with your leadership team and help them see the value of a strong safety culture
- Find natural leaders in the organization that are empathetic and value their teams
- Find the same type leaders in your workforce
- Recruit these leaders to the cause because they will multiply your efforts
It can be very difficult to get companies to change but when you do move that needle and create a strong safety culture it will protect countless workers in the future.
Remember that safety culture starts with you.
