Obsolete Safety (part 2)Jürgen Tietz

♦♦ CULTURE & SAFETY PERFORMANCE ♦♦

Nov 2017

Obsolete Safety (2)

the right people
+
the right questions
=
useful answers

communication

Ask better questions.
Ask the right people.
Don’t make assumptions.

These are some of the points I made in Obsolete Safety (part 1).
So here are some questions for you and your leaders.

QUESTIONS re SAFETY (the overall culture):

Who owns safety?

Who drew up the safety strategy / policy / budget and lifesaving rules ? Now: Ask the first question again.

What happens when your employees walk through the gate (both when coming to work and going home)?

How are you measuring safety, via the rear view mirror (looking at the past) or the windscreen (looking to the future)?

What keeps you awake at night, in terms of safety?

QUESTIONS re H&S REP’S specifically:

How happy are you with the contribution / engagement of your H&S Reps?

How proactive are your H&S Reps?

How happy are you with the people volunteering as H&S Reps?

Can your H&S Reps solve basic safety problems at the coalface?

How happy are you with the two-way communication in safety?

It’s easy to dismiss this with a “Been there, done that.”
However, I urge you to do it again and this time, ask the right people.

Run a few fully facilitated focus groups. Mixed groups consisting of EXCO members, managers, supervisors and H&S Reps work best, but your existing culture will determine whether or not you can do that. Take care to not fall into the trap of ‘analysis paralysis’, though. Talking to even a small number of people will quickly give you the answers.

Give serious consideration to the Disruptive Safety approach [1] to transform your workplace safety.

[1] Disruptive Safety™ promotes a futuristic approach to safety which shifts the safety paradigm from ‘Preventing wrong’ to ‘Ensuring right’.