Safety First No Not Really

7/27/2019 Safety First No Not Really

1/3

Safety Firs t? No, Not Really

While safety is important, putting safety firs t sends the wrong message to our organization.

Here's why.

Oct. 1, 1997EHS Today Staff

by Richard D. Fulwiler, Sc.D., CIH

Safety first! Is this an empty, time-worn slogan or a forceful admonition to senior line managementthat they heed relentlessly?

We know the answer. It is unrealistic to think that senior line management will day in, day out placesafety above all else. I am not saying that senior line management is irresponsible, uncaring ornumb to the contribution and importance of safety. In fact, there is a powerful incentive to enrollsenior line management in an ownership role for safety, but the way to do it is not by trumpeting ahollow slogan.

Why shouldnt safety be first? For the simple reason that safety must be an integral part of linemanagements responsibility. In that regard, safety should rank right up there with the other primaryobjectives of the enterprise such as productivity, quality and cost. It need not rank higher and itshould not rank lower.

A number of years ago, I was presented with a thought-provoking question: What would theimplications be if senior line management simply managed safety the same way it manages othersustaining priorities such as production, cost or quality? The implications are powerful. This article isintended to provide a process for making this happen.

Fundamental Breakthrough

One of the fundamental breakthroughs in a company broadly recognized for health and safetyexcellence was its line management being brought to the realization that the very same leadership

and management skills used in achieving outstanding production, quality and cost could deliversimilar results for health and safety. In other words, line managers have the skills to achieve healthand safety excellence. They either do not see it that way or they do not see health and safetylending itself to the management systems they use for production, quality and cost.

When health and safety managers finally get the ear of senior line management, they rarely chooseto communicate in the language of the customer. Instead, they talk about job safety analysis,incident investigations, lost workday cases, OSHA incidence rates, etc. Certainly, all of these havetheir place, but the line managers impression at this point is apt to be: That stuff isnt in my skill base.

As a result, they reject their ownership role for health and safety. After all, their expertise is achievingproduction, quality and cost objectives, not health and safety.

The scenario above is best described as a lost opportunity to enroll line management in its properownership role. Line management needs to be taught, or convinced, that safety is not first but rather

an equal held to the same level as production, quality and cost. More importantly, they need to beconvinced that those same skills they use to achieve production, quality and cost will work inachieving health and safety results.

Dan Petersen made this point eloquently in Why Safety is a People Problem (Occupational Hazards,January 1997). Petersen stated: For their part, managers must learn that they have to do thingswithin their line management structure on a regular basis...that produces safe behaviors. He added:The organization must unleash their management skills on safety problems.

Four Steps to Ownership

How do we get line management enrolled in the safety process to the extent they own it and lead it?Lets break this task down into four steps:


2/3

1) Get off the Safety First kick if that is your cur rent mind-set.

Instead, find out what the top two to four objectives of your enterprise are. It is a good bet thatproduction, quality or cost will have a presence, but there could be others.

2) Adopt a management systems approach to safety.

In other words, do not approach safety as a problem to be solved. Furthermore, be sure you are notfocusing on after the fact or lagging edge measures of safety performance, such as lost workdaycases or total incidence rate. Instead, build a management systems approach that has the sameelements used to achieve the most important objectives of your enterprise that you identified in Step1. Such a system should focus on before the fact or leading edge measures. The system couldinclude:

Clear expectations for health and safety established by senior management.

Management and employee involvement in a real and significant way. The establishment of goals and action plans to achieve those goals.

Technical and regulatory standards and requirements. Behavior-based safe practices built from job safety analysis. Employee training. Specialized training for designated health and safety resources. Behavior observation sampling. Behavior feedback (includes confrontation and positive reinforcement). Performance and results tracking.

When the elements for this system are put in place, you have a before the fact system that can drivecontinuous improvement, not an after the fact system focusing on solving the problem of the day.

3. Get line managements buy-in that safety should be one of the top objectives of thebusiness.

Meet with line management and share your observation that safety need not be first but should be ofequal rank to the other two to four top objectives you identified in Step 1.

Now is your chance to score a real breakthrough. Come prepared to demonstrate how improvedsafety can play a key role in supporting the achievement of one or more of those top two to fourobjectives of the business.

For example, assume productivity is one of the key business objectives. Improved safety canpositively impact productivity and not with simple humanitarian platitudes. You need to point out thatproductivity is impacted when a serious, or even a minor, injury occurs. Convert all the time lost,replacement cost, medical and workers compensation expenses, retraining, management timespent, etc. to real dollars. Estimate the total cost for a plant or a department and express the cost inthe same terms used by line management to measure productivity, not in the jargon of the safety

professional. This could be in terms of cents per labor hour, impact on unit costs or increased returnon net assets.

Now mention to them that they can make a significant improvement in safety results that will impactother key business objectives if they choose to apply their management and leadership skills tosafety just as they do to other primary objectives. The key to making this sale to line management isto describe a management systems approach similar to that described above in Step 2. Help themrecognize how this is the same approach they use in managing productivity, quality and cost.

4.Create the l inkage.

OK, you got their attention. Now, your job is to train them on how they can apply their managementand leadership skills in deploying and executing the management systems approach for safety. At


3/3

this point, you need to facilitate their linkage with safety. You need to help them see that theirprimary roles are to:

Set the EXPECTATIONS for the entire organization. COMMUNICATE these expectations to the organization. That is not your job. Demonstrate COMMITMENT to these expectations during tours, meetings and one-on-one

discussions. Provide reasonable RESOURCES; i.e., provide the right to succeed. Track progress and hold the organization ACCOUNTABLE. RECOGNIZE and REWARD progress and performance.

Conclusion

If you pick up any book on basic management, you will more than likely find two primary tenets thatare embodied in this discussion. First, management is a process based on a systematic approach toachieving identifiable objectives; i.e., a management systems approach. Second, the fundamental

roles of a manager are to: Set expectations; communicate those expectations; demonstrateinvolvement and commitment to those expectations; provide the necessary resources; track andhold the organization accountable; and recognize and reward progress and performance. Soundfamiliar? It should. Imagine the progress that can come from getting line management to apply thosesame management and leadership skills to safety as to their other top two to four businessobjectives. All this comes when safety is not first but when it is equal to the other objectives.

Dr. Richard D. Fulwiler, CIH, is president of Technology Leadership Associates, Cincinnati, Ohio,(513-941-1377). He is the former director, health and safetyworldwide for Procter & Gamble Co. anda past president of the American Academy of Industrial Hygiene.

Documents

Safety First No Not Really