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Influencing safety behavior: An interactive workshop campaign, which facilitates a cultural change in safety Adrian Etter (a) , Paul Hügli (b) , Uwe Schüttler (c) (a) HR-PE-MBP, SBB AG (b) K-Si-AVS, SBB AG (c) P-OP-RSQ-AUM, SBB AG Article Information Keywords: K1, Safety behavior K2, Cultural change K2, Coaching K4, Story telling K5. Appreciative inquiry Corresponding author: Dr Adrian Etter Tel.: +41792521822 Fax.:+41512203645 e-mail: [email protected] Address: Hochschulstrasse 6, 3000 Bern 65 Abstract This paper describes a workshop campaign at the Swiss Federal Railways. The purpose of this campaign is to influence safety behavior of all employees and working teams independently of the hierarchical position and working environment. We present the implementation process of the workshop campaign, which works his way through the company like a snowball effect starting on the top of the pyramid. We describe a highly structured interactive setting (interactive communication platform), which allows a manager to easily switch into a coaching role. We present the concept of an easy to use toolbox and emphasize the very encouraging development of the key performance indicators of the Swiss Federal Railways in the topic of safety. We finally present our learning’s from this very challenging project. 1 Introduction The Swiss Federal Railways is the largest railway company of Switzerland. The company has 27978 employees, transports 327 million customers per year and transports 230000 tones freight per day. Safety enjoys top priority at the Swiss federal railways. It is part of the brand value of our company. The company makes a constant strive for improving safety [1]. An external audit, made by the consultants of DuPont Safety, indicated that the safety culture of our company should be developed from a reactive attitude towards an attitude of prevention. For this purpose we have design an interactive coaching platform, an implementation process for this workshop campaign as well as tools, which all together should enhance the speed of this cultural change. This change should finally contribute to a positive influence in safety of our company. 2 Describing an interactive workshop campaign 2.1 Cultural Change designed as a top down process Cultural change is always associated with leadership and management tasks [2]. To accompany this change, we specially designed an interactive communication platform (ICP) in form of a coaching session. As target population, we assigned functional management teams. The implementation process was designed as a top down process. The concept is shown in fig.1. The consequence of this process is a snowball effect, following the hierarchical pathways of the company. To guarantee a certain sustainability of this cultural change, we added a horizontal process, which means that each management team is supposed to repeat the ICP four times within 12 months fig 1. 2.2 Management requirements of the ICP The ICP was developed to save management resources. The amount of time assigned to the ICP should be as short as possible (max. two hours) and compatible to a standard management meeting. No special room requirements should be necessary to perform an ICP. By doing so, no travel expenses will be generated; no seminar locations will be needed. The ICP session should furthermore directly contribute to the personal objectives in safety of each manager. These objectives are directly linked to one of the three top corporate management targets, which is safety. Furthermore no special coaching skills should be necessary. The story line and the structure of the ICP session should allow a manager to switch from his standard role to a coaching attitude without major obstacle and a special training. 2.3 The role of the safety coaches Our company has a staff of professionals specially trained in safety issues. These employees are experts in all different aspects concerning safety. We decided to integrate the safety coaches in our program. We assigned them the role of management partners in this campaign.

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Page 1: Rail Training Conference - An Interactive Workshop

Influencing safety behavior: An interactive workshop campaign, which facilitates a cultural change in safety

Adrian Etter (a), Paul Hügli (b), Uwe Schüttler (c) (a) HR-PE-MBP, SBB AG (b) K-Si-AVS, SBB AG (c) P-OP-RSQ-AUM, SBB AG

Article Information

Keywords: K1, Safety behavior K2, Cultural change K2, Coaching K4, Story telling K5. Appreciative inquiry

Corresponding author: Dr Adrian Etter Tel.: +41792521822 Fax.:+41512203645 e-mail: [email protected] Address: Hochschulstrasse 6, 3000 Bern 65

Abstract This paper describes a workshop campaign at the Swiss Federal Railways. The

purpose of this campaign is to influence safety behavior of all employees and working teams independently of the hierarchical position and working environment. We present the implementation process of the workshop campaign, which works his way through the company like a snowball effect starting on the top of the pyramid. We describe a highly structured interactive setting (interactive communication platform), which allows a manager to easily switch into a coaching role. We present the concept of an easy to use toolbox and emphasize the very encouraging development of the key performance indicators of the Swiss Federal Railways in the topic of safety. We finally present our learning’s from this very challenging project.

1 Introduction The Swiss Federal Railways is the largest railway

company of Switzerland. The company has 27978 employees, transports 327 million customers per year and transports 230000 tones freight per day.

Safety enjoys top priority at the Swiss federal railways. It is part of the brand value of our company. The company makes a constant strive for improving safety [1]. An external audit, made by the consultants of DuPont Safety, indicated that the safety culture of our company should be developed from a reactive attitude towards an attitude of prevention. For this purpose we have design an interactive coaching platform, an implementation process for this workshop campaign as well as tools, which all together should enhance the speed of this cultural change. This change should finally contribute to a positive influence in safety of our company.

2 Describing an interactive workshop campaign

2.1 Cultural Change designed as a top down process

Cultural change is always associated with leadership and management tasks [2]. To accompany this change, we specially designed an interactive communication platform (ICP) in form of a coaching session. As target population, we assigned functional management teams.

The implementation process was designed as a top down process. The concept is shown in fig.1. The consequence of this process is a snowball effect, following the hierarchical pathways of the company. To guarantee a certain sustainability of this cultural change, we added a horizontal process, which means that each management team is supposed to repeat the ICP four times within 12 months fig 1.

2.2 Management requirements of the ICP The ICP was developed to save management

resources. The amount of time assigned to the ICP should be as short as possible (max. two hours) and compatible to a standard management meeting. No special room requirements should be necessary to perform an ICP. By doing so, no travel expenses will be generated; no seminar locations will be needed. The ICP session should furthermore directly contribute to the personal objectives in safety of each manager. These objectives are directly linked to one of the three top corporate management targets, which is safety. Furthermore no special coaching skills should be necessary. The story line and the structure of the ICP session should allow a manager to switch from his standard role to a coaching attitude without major obstacle and a special training.

2.3 The role of the safety coaches Our company has a staff of professionals specially

trained in safety issues. These employees are experts in all different aspects concerning safety. We decided to integrate the safety coaches in our program. We assigned them the role of management partners in this campaign.

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Etter et al. Interactive communication platforms as tool for a cultural change in safety behavior

April 6th – 8th, 2011, Madrid,Spain Proceedings of the WCRT2011

They should be able to coach their managers by helping them to prepare an ICP. For this purpose we designed a very pragmatic training. The security coaches learned, how to use the tools, how to perform an ICP session and how to perform an ICP preparation with there assigned managers. Trainings where performed in German, French and Italian.

2.4 The tools for the ICP session Coaching of the ICP should be as simple as possible

for the coach and motivating for the team. We developed for the coach (the head of a given management team) an easy to use, reduced to the maximum toolbox. Tool number one is a poster (165cm x 115cm), which allows visualizing the coaching process and coaching outcome fig. 2 and fig. 3. The second tool is a set of coaching questions. Coaching questions are written on coaching cards fig.4 and fig. 5. There is one and only one coaching question per coaching card fig. 4. The ICP session is designed as a step by step easy to follow approach. Each card has a dedicated place on the poster fig. 3. The order of the coaching cards reflects the story line of coaching dialogue fig. 3. For this purpose we designed a system, which allows the coaching cards to be easily and intuitively classified fig. 4.

2.5 The leadership speech of the CEO Introduction of the ICP session, part one: The key

element of this step is a leadership speech from the CEO of the company. This speech was supposed to create the necessary sense of urgency for the topic and link the subject to one of the three top management targets, which is safety. This speech should also reflect the spirit of the workshop campaign, which was strongly inspired by the approach of appreciative inquiry (AI) 1 [3]. This leadership speech was recorded on DVD. It contains the welcome message and encourages the audience to continue the success story in safety and to work hard to even improve the already very high safety standard. This speech therefore enforces the visual key of the success story, which is shown in fig. 2.

2.6 The success story in safety Introduction of the ICP session, part two: The key

element of this step is a visual description of a success story of our company fig. 2. The technique we use in this step is the story telling approach [4]. The story we focus the attention on, talks about the reduction of work based accidents by 2/3 over the last 14 years. It also shows the gain of productivity in the same time span of over 80% fig.2. These facts suggest that employees and working teams have a profound knowledge about how to deal with safety hazards and how to improve safety gaps. The coach is supposed to create a coaching dialog by telling this story to his management team. This story is meant to mobilize the resources and to create motivation and pride. In this context we defined resources as talents, creative imagination, skills and knowledge of all individual being present. By creating a dialog the resources are amplified. After this sequence the ICP session switches to the side two of the poster fig. 3.

1 (AI) follows the assumption: Social systems develop in the direction they are looking and the questions, which are asked, determine the discoveries of the journey. (AI) focuses on the strength, on the positive and the potential of a system.

2.7 Focusing on one subject in the wide field of safety

Introduction of the ICP session, part three: In this step we introduce a subject, which has to be treated during a defined ICP session. This tool can be used to treat many different subjects, not only safety issues. On the bottom of the poster of side B we dedicated four squares for this purpose fig. 3. In the example discussed, the corresponding coaching cards where designed to stimulate a coaching dialog about some basics in safety prevention fig. 4 and fig. 5. Each card has its dedicated place on the poster. The order reflects the story line of the coaching dialog and should help the coach in structuring his coaching session.

2.8 Working with examples from the own environment

The last card of the introduction is an action card. No question is formulated but just an encouragement. Participants of the ICP session are invited to work on situations in there own working environment, which deal with safety hazards. Transparency and shared knowledge about the safety situation is now about to emerge. To structure this approach, we have subdivided the side B of the poster in three main columns of green, orange and red color fig. 3.

2.9 Discover the own success stories The green column is dedicated to the success stories

of the team. The corresponding coaching questions are: How was this success possible? What can we learn from this success? This step is of prime importance for the motivation because it links the effort of the team with the success story of the company fig. 2 and the leadership speech of the CEO, which has been described in 2.5.

2.10 Identifying safety hazards The orange and red columns are assigned to examples

of safety hazards in the working environment of the team. The coaching dialogue is stimulated by the question: What do we have to do, for improving our safety? The coach briefly calibrates the poster. He explains, by using dedicated coaching cards, the meaning of green yellow and red (for each different subject, the poster has to be recalibrated). Participants now identify situations they have noticed and write them down on yellow post it’s (76mm x 127mm). They then classify them according to a personal estimation in one of the three columns mentioned before. A typical outcome is presented in fig 3. A specially designed coaching card proposes a way to discuss the Post it’s in the green column. For the Post it’s placed in the yellow or red column, another coaching card proposes a coaching dialogue.

2.11 Bringing intentions into reality The outcome of this step is a plan of actions. The team

has to improve safety by distributing tasks among team members. The coaching question, which stimulates the dialog, is the following: Which person of the team takes care of which subject until which dead line? Out-comes of wider interest can also be used to sponsor the continuous improvement process of the company. A typical outcome of an ICP session is illustrated in fig. 3.

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Etter et al. Interactive communication platforms as tool for a cultural change in safety behavior

April 6th – 8th, 2011, Madrid,Spain Proceedings of the WCRT2011

2.12 Controlling the progress of the ICP process We have decided to monitor the snowball effect of the

ICP process and not the outcomes of the ICP sessions. The argument for this choice is: The participation to this workshop campaign is mandatory; the quality of the outcome of the ICP session is in the responsibility of the team. For this purpose we have created an intranet-based formula, which is supposed to be filled out by the ICP coach after having performed an ICP session. This step literally allows us to monitor the snowball effect which rolls down the hierarchical pathway. To facilitate the access to this intranet platform, the address of the web side was added to each coaching card as shown in fig 4.

3 Discussions & Conclusion To the time present, we have produced 1000 toolboxes

in German, 500 toolboxes in French and 100 toolboxes in Italian. In this ongoing process, 2386 workshops were performed (reference date 22.12.2010). The board of directors of the company and the management boards of our four divisions (cargo / infrastructure / passenger transportation as well as real estate), are part of the process. Corporate safety target in 2009 showed a 26% improvement over the previous year and the number of incidences on the SBB network decreased [1]. This encouraging result could be maintained in 2010. The acceptance of the program among the employees is encouraging as shown by the annual employee’s satisfaction survey. The safety culture was rated top three in popularity. This result indicates that the mobilization has been successful. We strongly believe that our program has contributed in a significant way to the very encouraging results in safety.

Our learning’s: Defining safety as one of the three top cooperate

management targets has been to us a unique window of opportunity.

The high management attention and the active participation of all top management teams were of prime importance for the success of our campaign.

The very economic use of management resources contributed to the acceptance of the procedure.

Being first participant before becoming coach enhanced the self-security of managers in the new role of being a coach.

The collaboration of the professionals in safety (safety coaches) was important for the promotion of the workshops.

Proposing hands on tools helped to give further security to the managers in this new role.

Structuring the coaching dialog through the specific order of the coaching cards has been proven to be very helpful.

We recommend to using corporate identity standards for all documents. This facilitates the sense of legitimacy.

We recommend organizing learning settings for the responsible staff of the campaign to exchange on a regular basic best practice.

We recommend asking always this final question: How can we contribute to the success of our managers in the topic of safety.

This figure shows the concept of the top down process as well

as the horizontal process of the ICP implementation process. The

top down process moves along the hierarchical pathway like an

avalanche. It will work his way through the strategically layer,

getting to the middle management and will finish at the level of

operations. The horizontal process should guarantee certain

sustainability. Each team is supposed to perform an ICP session

four times in a time period of 12 months.

Fig. 1 Top down process

This figure shows side A of the poster, which is part of the

toolbox: It shows the success story describing the diminution of

work-based accidents by 66% while raising the pro capita

productivity by 80%. It also shows the cultural evolution, which

the company considers to realize, as well as the three pillars of

the safety culture.

1 2 3 4

Top Management

Middle Management

Operative Management

Horizontal process

1

2 3

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April 6th – 8th, 2011, Madrid,Spain Proceedings of the WCRT2011

Fig. 2 Coaching tool: Poster - Side A

This figure shows side B of the poster. It contains the

structure of the step-by-step process, allows visualizing the

coaching outcome as well as the visualization of the action plan.

Fig. 3 Coaching tool: Poster - Side B

This figure shows the concept of the coaching card side B.

This side is dedicated to the coach to make coaching easy. It

contains the relevant coaching question in reference to the actual

coaching step. It contains possible answers to the questions, to

stimulate the coaching dialogue. It includes a system, which

allows an easy handling and organization of the numerous

coaching cards.

Fig.4 Coaching tool: Coaching card - Concept side B

This figure shows the concept of side A of a given coaching

card, which is shown to the team. Side turned to the coach is

shown in Fig. 4. The intention of this side is to enforce the

thinking process and to enhance the pertinence of the coaching

question by a visual key. Intentionally we used drawings and not

photographs with the goal to create a world of pictures associated

with the safety culture.

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Fig. 5 Coaching tool: Coaching card - Concept side A

Acknowledgement Hugo Halbeisen Remo Kurt Simone Zuber Blättler Reinhold Dänzer Ardian Hassani Bernhard Imhof Yves Karlern Othmar Ling Linda Zimmermann Nuria Grütter Adrian Amann

References [1] SBB Annual report website. http://sbb-gb2009.mxm.ch/_pdf/SBB_d_mit_ug_gesamt.pdf pp 21. 2009. [2] J.P. Cotter, leading change, Harvard Business School Press 1996. [3] C. Maleh, M. zur Bonsen, Appreciative Inquiry (AI): Der Weg zur Spitzenleistung: Eine Anwendung für Anwender, Entscheider und Berater, Beltz Verlag 2001. [4] S. Denniay, the leaderʼs guide to storytelling, Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 2005. [5] P.G. Zimbardo, K. Westhof : Lehrbuch der Psychologie. Eine Einführung für Studenten der Psychologie, Medizin und Pädagogik, S. 366, Springer Verlag Berlin 1974.