Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.
Issue link: https://digital.thesafetymag.com/i/356771
10 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com LEGAL CONNECTION I COMPENSATION WATCH BY ALAN QUILLEY TRAINING I n the last issue, I explored the need to make the management of health, safety and environment (HSE) look more like how we manage the pro- duction process of products and services within our organizations. Aligning these processes makes it easier for everyone to implement the necessary steps to reach safety excellence since they are already used to doing it for the organization. If we examine how almost all work gets done in organizations, it usually starts with a mission, vision, values or purpose statement of commitment — and then we go about making those desires happen. How they actually turn into reality is through human activi- ties that are usually set as objectives and measured as they are being implemented. e management of HSE should be no diff erent. It will take "nested activities" throughout the entire orga- nization to get this done. All levels of the organization, from the CEO to the hourly paid employees, must be engaged in the process exactly like they are engaged to create the core products and services the company is trying to create. Responsibility is assigned from the top down and accountability fl ows from the bottom up. What we are responsible for in an organization is typically com- municated through job descriptions and policy and procedure documents. What we are held accountable for is typically clarifi ed through objective setting with our supervisors and daily discussions and progress reports. Here is the fi rst opportunity to make HSE management look more like how we manage other functions. e vision needs to be about creating, not preventing. I've written extensively about not using the absence of injury as a target. It's a very poor way to measure a safe and healthy workplace. If we created safety in our work- places, the logical outcome will be low or no injuries. Our goals need to be in line with production goals. We do not normally measure our success in other areas of production by counting what is not pro- duced by our actions. We normally measure what is produced and how it is being produced. So, why not use what we already know about managing well and apply this to the goal of creating safety excellence? Nested safety activities, behaviours e key to measuring process and results is to fully understand what is being measured and what activi- ties we are responsible for conducting. Mature safety cultures require this understanding throughout the organization. Each management level understands their individual activities and they are measured on those activities to ensure any rewards for good performance are based on them being a part of creating the outcomes. Here's a sample of how it works: The CEO is ultimately responsible for the creation of a safe and healthy work environment at her company. Activities she can be held accountable for can include: • ensuring all of the direct report vice-presi- dents have properly budgeted for safety and health within their operating budgets; • ensuring the importance of activities that create safety and health is documented in all job descriptions and performance appraisal systems to a signifi cant weighting (for exam- ple, 25 per cent of at-risk pay compensation package); • ensuring the importance of safety and health in the company's activities is communicated from the senior management level through personal communications and company events with employees. ese are only examples of what can be done, but the key is to weigh heavily on the activi- ties that create safety — not the results. When properly selected, activity measures will drive positive outcomes. If not, then diff erent activi- ties need to be conducted. ere is a direct cause-and-eff ect relation- ship between creating safety and having very low negative outcome numbers (such as inju- ries, related costs and equipment damage). Logically, if we are working safely then unde- sired negative outcomes should be the result of creating safety. What is best about this logical approach is we can be confi dent we created the results and they didn't just happen because we were lucky. Moving down through the organization, the direct reporting positions to the CEO now have to nest their activities to support the accomplishment of the CEO. ese activities can directly make the CEOs activities happen within their area of responsibility or create their own specifi c health and safety related activity that will be further supported by their own direct reports. For example: • ensure that safety and health creating activities are properly budgeted — suffi cient time for the activi- ties and suffi cient fi nancial support for compliance and improvements — in their area of responsibility, including training and committee meetings; • ensure employee health and safety "town hall" events are scheduled annually, attended by the CEO, and include presentations about the progress of safety and health creating activities; • ensure workplace tours are conducted quarterly, emphasizing the importance of creating safety and health through management and employee observed activities. is nesting of activities, if continued throughout the organization, will drive the creation of safety and health in any organization. A boss cannot meet her goals without the support of her subordinates. is is an exact parallel to the way organizations create the production of goods and services. rough the nesting of objectives and activities from the front line worker up to the CEO, people are all dependent on each other to ensure common goals are met. If we want to create companies that work in safe and healthy ways, we need to measure that the people doing the work to create the products and services are doing their jobs that way. Lack of injury measures doesn't accomplish this. What really measures safety is observing the way in which we do our work. I hope that gives you some ideas on how this can work in your organization. I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes about motivation by Aubrey C. Daniels: "People do what they do because of what hap- pens when they do it." Alan Quilley is the president of Safety Results, based in Sherwood Park, Alta. Visit his blog at www.safety results.wordpress.com. 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