reducing injuries in the workplace | Safety Excellence For Business

Trust is so Important for Improved Safety Performance

I have been trying to understand why the number of people getting hurt and killed at work is not getting better.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since 2017 the number of people being killed at work is averaging about 5,130 a year, with no sign of improvement and the injury frequency rate is stuck at about 2.7 for that period.

There is a lot of effort being put into trying to improve safety with the global effort totaling about $20,000,000,000 being spent for services, regulation, equipment, trade associations, etc. This is a huge industry; I call it “Big Safety.” Why isn’t Big Safety making more progress in reducing the number of people getting hurt and killed? These are real people and their families that are suffering so much.

I have been getting some help from Kerry Turner and Marc Pierson in looking at the safety work from a systems perspective. The safety system is huge with many factors at play. The systems approach is helpful in being able to see the whole system, the various components, how they interact, find key points where changes can be made.

One thing that I have seen is that injuries and incidents are local events, and it is hard for Big Safety to know what really happened in detail. What it offers often does not fit quite right and comes across to the people as “the Flavor of the Month.” The people doing the work have little confidence in what the offerings provide so they often do not stick very well.

Another thing that I have noticed is that the consultants coming out of Big Safety often are seen as “experts” and come into the organization to fix the people rather than teaching the people how to solve their own problems. This weakens the people and tends to disempower them. This is a lot like Big Government coming into a local community to fix a problem when they do not know the people or much about the real nature of the problem they are coming in to fix.

In studying the Safety System, it becomes obvious that trust is a central feature that is often missing when Big Safety comes into the organization. There has been a lot written about the importance of trust, and in using a systems approach, trust really emerges as the central feature that needs to be in place before much progress in improving safety performance can take place. Real progress requires the energy, creativity and commitment of the people doing the work. This is a gift that people will give if they have trust in the other people and feel safe in opening up to meet the safety challenges.

A Suggested Approach to Building Trust

Perhaps when a consultant comes into an organization to work on a safety issue, they come into the organization 2-3 days before their planned work begins and walk into the facility among the people to get acquainted with them. Talk with the people, listen to their concerns, and discover what the real problems are that are causing the need for improved performance. Talk about their work with them and find out what they need so they can work more safely and effectively.

Open yourself up to their questions and concerns about you. Creating a safe space where they can talk with you is an important step in building trust with the people. Then the consultant needs to reflect on all that was learned and see how their knowledge and skills can be used to help the people to solve their problems. Don’t try to solve their problems for them or fix them. Rather teach them how to solve their own problems.

I have found that this approach works very well in helping to get to know the people, the issues, and to begin to build trust.

Doing Safety Right in the Workforce!

So much of our safety efforts are aimed at trying to get the people to do safety right.

Photo Credit: OSHA.gov/Safety

There are lots of good ideas, new techniques, slogans, better equipment, PPE and so on. When I go to an American Society for Safety Professionals Conference, I am awed by the beautiful displays of new and better equipment and supplies. A lot of safety people are trying to improve safety in the workplace. It is hard work, and progress in reducing injuries and incidents is slow.

My Earlier Years

Over my 20+ years in managerial positions, working to improve the performance of organizations, I have found that the way I worked in my early years of pushing, pushing, scolding, blaming, looking for root cause, etc. was not very successful. I did not listen well and did a lot of arguing. I took an approach of trying to take things apart, thinking that if I understood the parts I could fix things. I felt that I had to know everything and fix the problems and the people. But the same problems kept popping up and no one seemed to learn or care. Trying to catch people doing something wrong, sets us up for a lot of arguments and struggles. Many organizations where I worked were not happy places. (And I learned that it didn’t have to be that way – old school management certainly had its flaws!)

Growing Up

However, when I began to realize that almost all people are smart in their own ways, things began to change. As I learned to purposefully go into the workplace, sit down with the working people, and listen to what they had to say, I found that most people are doing things quite well. They wanted to help to make things better. Most people do not want to get hurt or cause a problem. Rather than treating them as if they just did not care, I realized that they had a lot to offer and wanted to contribute. I just had to ask them, listen, and create the conditions where they could be their best. (They had so much information and innovations to offer!)

At first, I found the people frustrated and unhappy that no one had ever listened to them. When I first began to walk among them, there was a lot of fear and little trust. What was I really doing? Was I really trying to engage with them and learn? Was I just trying to find something wrong in a sneaky way? As I kept trying, kept listening and learning to talk with the people, and not at them, things began to shift. Each conversation was a little step, so I had many conversations. When I was the Plant Manager at the DuPont Belle, WV Plant, I did this for 4-5 hours a day for over 7 years. (Yes, I kept long work hours!)

In talking with the people, building trust, and helping them to see that they were an important part of our total success, our performance improved. In the first 4 years, our injury rate dropped by 97%, emissions dropped by 95%, productivity rose by 45% and earnings rose by 300%. We kept getting better. I did not do this by myself, the people, all of us together did this. I found that in all these conversations that the collective intelligence of the whole organization went up and kept going up as we all talked and learned together. We all became partners in building a successful business.

My Consulting Experiences in Safety

Over the last 28 years of consulting with organizations around the world, to help them improve their performance, I have used and taught this approach. I have developed a focused tool for our conversations that helps to make this work focused, effective and fast. It helps the people to see what they are doing, breaks down barriers, builds trust, enables them to solve complex problems, and make decisions close to their work. In these conversations the collective intelligence of the groups always goes up. All dimensions of their performance improve, often quite quickly. They sustain this work for years by continuing these conversations among themselves. I call this tool the Cycle of Intelligence. It is simple to use, requires no new capital investment and helps the people, all of them from the top down, to sustain and improve progress in their continuous conversations.

Invitation:

If you want to learn more about the Cycle of Intelligence and how this process works, please give me a call at 716-622-6467 or contact me at richard@rnknowlesassociates.com. We can set up a Zoom call if necessary. (Yes, we do “Train the Trainer” sessions.)

Perhaps you have a story you want to share. It is so important to establish your credibility as a manager or supervisor who is committed to improving safety and to respect your people – because worker participation, involvement and enthusiasm is a treasure. Hope to hear from you!