5 STEPS TO A STRONG SAFETY CULTURE

5 STEPS TO A STRONG SAFETY CULTURE

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5 STEPS TO A STRONG SAFETY CULTURE

Strengthening an organization’s safety culture can help streamline communication and bring teams together while improving safety records and driving safer outcomes. Ninety-eight percent of safety leaders believe more front-line participation is the key to improving safety performance and building a strong safety culture.1

Safety culture can be described as the behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes towards safety and its value, found within a particular organization.

With the current state of the world, having all workers come together physically in one place is not feasible. This has left EHS professionals searching for an alternative means to connect the workforce and either start or continue to develop their safety culture. The impact of remote work, dispersed teams, modified workspaces, and the like, has increased the complexities of connecting your workforce and driving a strong safety culture that will create a more proactive approach to risk mitigation.

In 2020, we conducted a survey with over 800 companies in North America, within small, medium, and enterprise businesses in a range of high-risk industries from energy and manufacturing to construction and mining. We asked how they feel about the state of safety and our survey revealed:

• 33% feel poor safety culture is a business challenge

• And over 40% see Health and Safety as a competitive advantage, if managed well

1 EHS Daily Advisor, “Participation Counts: A Look at Participation Based Safety”, BLR, Tennessee, 2017 2 Assurance, How to Calculate and Communicate Your Safety ROI for Your Construction Company, May 2019 3 Bureau of Labor Statistics US Department of Labor, News Release, Dec. 2020 4 McKinsey & Company, Psychological Safety and the Critical Role of Leadership Development, Feb. 2021 5 EHS Today, Optimize Safety Training by Properly Leveraging e-Learning, Aug. 2018

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https://go.ecompliance.com/WP-2020-11-The-State-of-Safety-2020-and-Beyond_state-of-safety.html

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In a previous study1, Alcumus analyzed organizational safety performance over five years. Through this, it was found that companies usually fall into one of the following four categories:

Low Compliance Culture Low risk industries, where the law requires safety training. Low Compliance Culture organizations implement minimal training, resulting in low adoption and low safety activity rates per employee.

Reactive Culture Reactive organizations, responding to a particular incident where someone has injured themselves in the office. These organizations see high adoption rates and low safety activity rates per employee.

Task Force Culture Safety professionals eager to point out deficiencies and violations, resulting in high levels of safety activities per employee and low adoption rates.

High Participation Culture Highly proactive with commitment to safety from the CEO all the way to the front-line workforce, resulting in high safety activities seen per employee and a high adoption rate.

A ‘High Participation Safety Culture’ is the ideal, but under current circumstances, understanding how EHS professionals can increase worker participation when so many are widely distributed, disconnected, or unwilling to engage is challenging.


SAFETY CULTURE FRAMEWORK


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INTRODUCING THE 5 STEPS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SAFETY CULTURE

In order to meet the ideal of a High Participation Culture, there are five steps EHS professionals can take towards a strong safety culture:

STEP 1: GET SENIOR LEADERSHIP INVESTED IN SAFETY To develop a more connected workforce and a strong safety culture, an organization must ensure leadership is invested in the safety program. C-Suite and senior management should be fully engaged in delivering positive safety outcomes and truly believe in and promote the value this will bring to the business. Front-line workers will be less inclined to show engagement or participation towards a company if they do not see this dedication reflected in their managers and senior leadership. If a strong belief in safety is seen at the very top, it will trickle down to all areas of the organization.

The CEO and other senior leadership members may have an emotional connection to safety as there may have been a triggering occurrence, or catalyst, driving their consistent commitment. Conversely, others are driven by the ROI of safety and how it can boost the bottom line or help avoid loss. EHS professionals can motivate senior executives by presenting how organizations can reduce costs and save money by investing in safety.


1 GET SENIOR LEADERSHIP INVESTED IN SAFETY

2 IMPLEMENT A USER-FRIENDLY TOOL

3 RECOGNIZE FRONT-LINE WORKFORCE EFFORTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

4 CLOSE THE FEEDBACK LOOP

5 PROVIDE TRAINING RESOURCES AND A TRAINING PROGRAM


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PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY The idea of psychological safety has become truly important during the pandemic, enabling leaders to help create a more productive environment4. One of the most important ways a leader can instill psychological safety is through a positive team climate where members care about one another and a leader shows support for all members and takes feedback into consideration4. When leaders show supportive and consultative leadership, a positive team climate is the end benefit4.

How does this apply to EHS? When safety leaders or a CEO in a company creates a positive environment where workers feel comfortable enough to voice concerns and report near-misses or deficiencies without fear, workers will be more inclined to participate and be engaged in safety. As safety champions, leaders must be empowering workers and inspiring them to do all they can when it comes to safety.


THE ROI OF SAFETY OSHA studies show organizations can save between $4-6 USD for every dollar put into a proper safety program2. An investment in safety will ultimately lead to less fines or penalties, insurance premiums, and more, allowing you to ultimately cut costs.

According to statistics released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics3:

• 2019 saw the largest number in fatal occupational injuries since 20073

• A work-related injury caused one worker to die every 99 minutes3

A lack of involvement in building a proper health and safety program is costing people’s lives. This must change.

In addition to protecting workers and saving lives, an investment in a safety program will help organizations benefit in other areas such as company credibility and reputation, employee morale, and worker retention rates. With industry members aware of leadership commitment to safety through compliance and legislative initiatives, EHS professionals will also see more opportunities for larger bids and bigger projects. Going beyond monetary value and considering sustainability and the part a leader plays in causing it to thrive, is also another essential element to think about.


https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf

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KEY ELEMENTS TO A DIGITAL EHS SOLUTION EHS solutions create safer places to work, as seen from the numbers above, and EHS professionals have been able to strengthen their safety cultures and stay connected with the use of technology. A robust digital EHS solution should have the following elements:


User-friendly and familiar

Empowering the workforce with a simple mobile tool that’s easy to use, can help boost participation and adoption rates. If it is similar in principle and process to the previous physical tool and is highly self-directed, it will be more effective in streamlining daily tasks and boosting productivity. Such a tool can help build a strong foundation to connect the workforce and optimize day to day processes, bolstering safety culture.

Simple corrective action notification set up

EHS professionals should also be able to easily define and automate notifications and alerts to streamline and support a real-time process. All workers should be enabled to easily access and use a single platform, allowing EHS professionals to ensure nothing is being missed or overlooked. This helps drive accountability and responsibility among team members, and across the organization, helping to further strengthen safety culture.

Robust reporting functionality

Having the ability to easily track key safety metrics, trends and patterns, leading and lagging indicators, and more, through integrated reporting engines within digital EHS solutions is important. This will help enhance the safety program and fortify safety culture with complete transparency into all data points, to help mitigate risks quickly and create a safer work environment. Team members will be more invested in safety, with the ability to see that their actions play a role in implementing a more proactive approach.

STEP 2: IMPLEMENT A USER-FRIENDLY TOOL Technology has the power to connect workers and EHS professionals within an organization as a distributed workforce. This has evolved rapidly due to the pandemic, as organizations in various industries have switched to working from home and conducting all business remotely, using technology.

This is not fully possible for front-line workers as they must be on-site to complete projects. Due to COVID-19 related social distancing measures and industry protocols, many workers have been sent home and reduced numbers have been working on-site. Because of these changes, organizations should be asking themselves the following questions: How can you ensure productivity during this time? What will keep workers connected? How will you keep your safety culture strong? The answer: a technology-led EHS solution.

Our market research, discussed in the whitepaper Safety Landscape in North America During COVID-19, has shown technology-led EHS solutions, have helped customers see lower TRIF rates than the industry average and have given EHS professionals the ability to improve their overall safety record. Organizations have reduced injury rates by 60%, with 24% achieving zero incidents since implementation.




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STEP 3: RECOGNIZE FRONT-LINE WORKFORCE EFFORTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS Once leaders are invested and a robust tool is put in the workforce’s hands to empower them, it’s time to start recognizing front-line worker efforts and implement coaching sessions and safety meetings to maintain momentum. If the workforce doesn’t feel their input is valued, they will be less inclined to participate in the creation of a safer environment which in turn puts the development of a strong safety culture at risk.

If workers see that what they are doing has value, they will be motivated and engaged to do more. For example, give recognition to a worker practicing safe behavior. Positive reinforcement is very effective in creating a more proactive safety approach and a stronger safety culture.

Another way to make the workforce feel recognized is by giving them a voice to share input and give feedback. Ask for their input of ways to strengthen your safety program and processes, streamlining communication and keeping these channels open at all times.

PROVIDE COACHING OPPORTUNITIES To strengthen safety culture, EHS professionals should consider implementing a coaching program which can help empower workers and spark more dialogue. Safety professionals need to create an environment where a sense of psychological safety is predominant, as mentioned before, to focus on teaching workers rather than reprimanding them.

Coaching programs encourage workers to interact with one another and talk about safety in a more casual setting. By speaking to front-line workers and having access to what’s top of mind, EHS professionals can see what people are addressing through real-time reporting and information sharing, that may not have been addressed in a typical inspection or “tailgate talk.”

By including coaching documents and forms within the digital EHS solution, safety professionals can easily track and obtain data which could point to issues and concerns that may have been hidden. This provides the ability to compare different data sets and assess whether inspection deficiencies line up with coaching trends observed. With such visibility through real-time reporting, EHS professionals can stay proactive and mitigate risks, while strengthening safety culture in the process.


Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) and one of 16 Infrastructure Health and Safety Association (IHSA) auditors, Cam Mitchell shared this in Safeguard Your COR Success Guide: “People respond to positive feedback. If we only focus on what went wrong and the negatives, it diminishes your health and safety culture. Thank your teams for their participation.”


https://go.ecompliance.com/SafeguardCORSuccessGuide.html

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STEP 4: CLOSE THE FEEDBACK LOOP In addition to powerful coaching sessions, it’s essential for EHS professionals to be completely transparent and close the feedback loop when it comes to safety. What does this mean? This means safety meetings or toolbox talks where data and information are shared, are essential to ensure visibility and alignment across the organization.

It happens so often that management is disconnected from the front-line workforce, neglecting to share the results of a recent audit or important data surfaced through reports. This is detrimental to connecting workers and strengthening your safety culture as they are not seeing the full impact their work is having. Without complete visibility of results, organizations can limit the opportunity for improvement and growth.

LEVERAGE TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE VISIBILITY With an EHS solution optimized for collaboration and data access, safety professionals can efficiently close the feedback loop and share necessary insights with team members to connect the workforce and improve safety culture. The following table shows key report types leaders can share with employees to prove their safety activities are used to create a safer place to work.

Incident Field Responses Overview Inspection Field Responses Overview

Meeting Field Responses Overview

All three of these reports have the same purpose, but are separated as different form types for incidents, inspections, and meetings. These reports show all responses employees have given to a certain question within the form. When these reports are shared, workers see the information they are entering is being reviewed and actioned to make improvements.

Deficiencies Overview

This report showcases how many fails were selected for every type of inspection and the action items created based on the fails. With these reports, safety leaders can stress the importance of deficiencies being logged in the system, to create a safer work environment.

Action Items Overview

This report highlights the source of action items in addition to completion status. This report helps to close the feedback loop as it encourages workers to identify corrective actions at any point and resolve them swiftly.



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Safety professionals can also close the feedback loop through certain options like email schedules.

Email Schedules

SearchA Search feature shows a list of assets, with the ability to filter information such as new additions, ownership, etc. which can be communicated to the team.

Report

The Report feature shows a list of events that meet the specified filter criteria, such as date performed, by whom, results, and asset details. This can be communicated to teams to show the results of recent events, what events need to be completed, and what events are assigned to a user.

STEP 5: PROVIDE TRAINING RESOURCES AND A TRAINING PROGRAM The final step to help EHS professionals strengthen safety culture and keep all employees invested is by providing resources for continuous learning opportunities. Equip your front-line workforce with the best tools to instill and sustain their engagement with your safety program.

eLearning courses and the ability to customize training and onboarding can help safety professionals keep workers prepared and engaged, while staying aligned with company safety objectives. A digital EHS solution can make it easier to manage all front-line training and certification so expiration dates, renewals, etc. are never missed. EHS professionals can also ensure compliance and create a safer workplace by tracking all eLearning activities.

Look for digital EHS solutions which have:

Mobile capabilities

Two thirds of people use their mobile device to learn, with 87% of millennials stating they are never without their devices5. By offering an extensive eLearning library to workers, accessible through a mobile device, they will have the ability to upskill and learn whenever and wherever is most convenient.

Microlearning

Microlearning is not an alternative to training, but can be a great compliment to it5. Microlearning videos are just a few minutes in length, with content focused on a specific topic or skill. Said to boost retention and engagement rates, EHS professionals should consider a digital EHS solution that supports access to microlearning videos5.

Instant Sharing Capabilities

Giving workers the ability to immediately have their certification on their device, in an easily printable or sharable format such as PDF, is valuable. When team members can quickly access and share specific certificates and training accreditation, they can show compliance to standards and regulations when requested and where necessary.

With the right digital, mobile, user-friendly tool, you can connect your workforce with the greatest efficacy to create a stronger safety culture and a safer place to work.



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READY TO SEAMLESSLY BRING YOUR ENTIRE WORKFORCE TOGETHER? When we asked the safety community, what they felt strong safety cultures consisted of, one key element was consistently brought forward: safety success is achieved when the right people are empowered with the right tools. Once this is established, organizations create an open and positive working environment where front-line employee efforts are recognized and coaching opportunities are readily available. Next, close the feedback loop ensuring there is complete transparency to all team members, and maintain this dedication and commitment to safety with continuous resources.

It’s time to connect your workforce like never before and strengthen your safety culture. Not only will you have access to innovative and easy to use safety solutions with Alcumus, a team of safety experts are also available to help navigate to your ideal safety program and develop a plan to ensure ongoing improvement. We are dedicated to helping you protect all team members to attain the ultimate goal of getting every worker home safely at the end of the day.

Speak to one of our safety experts today to see how our suite of safety solutions can help you create a safer workplace.


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ABOUT ALCUMUSAlcumus is a leading provider of technology-led risk management solutions providing clients with advice, expertise and support to help them identify and mitigate risks, navigate compliance and keep people safe. It supports clients with a wide range of risk management services, including products across Supply Chain Management, EHS Software, and Asset Inspection Systems.

Our people are at the heart of our business, building strong relationships with our clients to understand their needs, minimize risks and navigate compliance through our in-depth knowledge of your sector, regulations and challenges.

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5 STEPS TO A STRONG SAFETY CULTURE