The 6 elements

PBPExecutiveReports

THE
6 Elements

OF A
Successful
Safety Program
A SPECIAL REPORT FOR
SAFETY PROFESSIONALS AND EXECUTIVES

The 6 Elements of a
Successful Safety Program
PBP Executive Reports are straightforward, fast-read reports designed for time-
pressed upper-level executives and managers. PBP Executive Reports excel at
cutting the fluff, eliminating jargon and providing just the information today’s
executives need to improve their organizations’ performance.

This Executive Report was researched and written by the veteran Editorial staff
of Progressive Business Publications, a leading speciality-information company.
It contains the latest thinking and best practices for implementing a successful
safety program in all types of industries and organizations.

© 2010 PBP Executive Reports
All rights reserved.
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Executive Summary
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Most safety and health professionals agree their jobs have a technical side and a
people side. Most of them will agree, too, that the people side of safety is much
harder to master than the technical side.
The technical side includes such things as making sure machine guards are
properly designed and installed, personal protective equipment is used, training is
provided, and enforcement and discipline are in place.
Maybe you can’t quite learn it from a book entitled “Safety for Dummies,” but
nevertheless ample resources exist to help safety professionals with these matters.
There are few good resources that specifically address the people side of safety
and provide an exact roadmap for winning the hearts and minds of workers so they
actually WANT to do a job safely.
That’s why the people side of safety is seen as the more challenging side of a
safety professional’s job.
To help safety professionals be as successful with the people side of safety as
they are with the technical side, this Executive Report examines the six elements of
successful safety programs, three of them technical, the other three people-focused.
All six elements have been given a title by Scott Geller, the Safety Performance
Solutions consultant and a frequent speaker at many safety conventions. Geller is
among the safety thought leaders who stress behavior-based safety.
All of the elements are organized in a manner starting with the letter “E”.

On the technical side:
I Engineering
I Education
I Enforcement

On the people side:
I Emotion
I Empathy
I Empowerment

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report explores and explains how even the technical side of safety
can be administered more effectively by taking into account the elements of the
people side.
Further, this report explains the importance of using the right phrases and
language to conquer the hearts and minds of workers. It examines which terms are
better avoided and what the best substitutes are.
And finally, it sets out a simple self-auditing procedure for determining when
safety professionals can feel confident they have been successful in reaching the
hearts and minds of their workers so safety considerations will always be foremost
in their decision-making.
All it takes is finding the answers to three simple questions – and anonymous
surveys can help any safety professional find those answers.

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The Executive Report
The 6 Elements of a
Successful Safety Program
Safety management is never easy because safety and health professionals
have to keep their eyes on so many different things at the same time. It’s
like juggling multiple balls and making sure none come crashing down.
Safety professionals have to make sure the workplaces in their care are
free of recognized safety and health hazards.
Yet, to have an effective safety management program, everyone knows
that’s not enough.
Even if everything relating to machine guarding and personal protective
equipment is in place, and all required training has been done – and even if
the worst nitpicking OSHA inspector couldn’t find any fault with the
physical plant and the required training and recordkeeping because it’s all
properly documented – there’s no guarantee an accident won’t happen.
That’s because fallible human beings work with those well-designed
machines. Wherever people are present, variables exist, errors can be made,
equipment can be damaged, and people can get injured – or worse.
To have an effective safety program, safety professionals must be well
covered in six different areas.
Three of those areas have to do with the physical plant and the required
paperwork that must all be in place. This is the technical side of safety.
Although the technical side is difficult, competent safety professionals
can cover all these bases if they use the right resources.
The other three elements, the most difficult ones to get right, all have to
do with influencing the people doing the jobs, and the human dynamics

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THE 6 ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL SAFETY PROGRAM

that come along with having people interact with each other while dealing
with complicated manufacturing equipment and other work processes.

The 6 E-words
Only the most effective safety management programs give equal
attention to all six factors.
To make these broad areas of safety management more memorable, they
can all be given titles with words that start with the letter “E.”
The first three elements to be considered are those dealing with the
physical environment and the regulatory requirements – in other words, the
technical side of safety.
They are:
1. Engineering
2. Education
3. Enforcement

The next three elements to be considered are the most difficult ones,
because they deal with the human dynamics, the people side of safety.
They are:
4. Emotion (including emotional intelligence)
5. Empathy
6. Empowerment

1. Engineering
Having the right safety engineering in place in any plant, at any
worksite, or in any warehouse or office, means that all machinery is
regularly checked by competent professionals to ensure safe operation.

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Thorough safety professionals document these equipment inspections.
For machines that could come into harmful contact with the bodies of
workers, that usually means putting the right machine guards on the
equipment, or railings, or whatever might be required to create a physical
barrier.
Along with machine guards, any number of other wonderful safety
devices have been invented that are available to safety professionals to keep
people out of harm’s way.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) also falls into the broader category
of engineering.
The right kind of PPE has to be selected after a careful analysis of the
hazards workers may encounter in the workplace during the normal course
of their jobs.
PPE can range from safety shoes and boots, hardhats, safety gloves,
respirators, eye and face shields to full-body suits, depending on the
conditions encountered in the workplace.
PPE must be carefully selected and maintained, and steps have to be
taken to make sure that workers use it correctly.
General good housekeeping practices also fall into this engineering
category.
Cluttered workplaces are an invitation to disaster.
So are wet spots and spills – especially if workers lack the discipline to
mark the spots and clean them up as soon as possible. Poor housekeeping
inevitably results in slip-and-fall accidents, and worse.
Workstation design is another important part of engineering. Poor
workstation design, especially for people who have to engage in repetitive
motions as part of their jobs, is a known cause of ergonomic soft-tissue
injuries. Those injuries carry a high price tag because they cause an
inordinately high number of days away from work.

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More engineering controls – the list goes on
A solid program for confined-space entry, where required, also falls
under engineering controls, as do fire protection measures and the control
of electrical hazards, which can cause shock as well as fires.
On construction jobs where people have to work at heights of six feet or
more, fall protection needs to be in place, which may include properly
constructed scaffolds and reliable tie-offs for workers.
The number of engineering controls that may be needed to mitigate
workplace hazards is as varied as the workplaces themselves.
Trained safety professionals generally do well on the engineering parts
of their jobs. There are OSHA rules to consult as to what’s necessary, as
well as voluntary additional standards promulgated by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI).
There may also be additional voluntary safety management standards
adopted by the International Standards Organization (ISO). And any good
workers’ compensation insurance company will have consultants available
to conduct a free internal safety audit and make recommendations on what
needs fixing.
Professional organizations like the American Society of Safety Engineers
(ASSE), the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) and the
National Safety Council (NSC) are other important resources that can be
tapped for help.
Many of these associations have active local chapters in addition to the
national organizations.
In general, most conscientious safety professionals earn a good grade on
the first “E” of effective safety programs, the part having to with safety
engineering.

2. Education
Education is of equal importance to the success of any safety program as
engineering.

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The best safety guards in the business and the best PPE available on the
market will be of no use if the people who have to work near them or use
them haven’t been educated and trained how to use them properly.
People have to be trained to do any job well, so they will be able to do
it efficiently.
And along with how to do the job efficiently, they should also be
trained, ideally at the same time, on how to do the job safely. Efficiency
and safety must go hand in hand to achieve strong safety results.
Some safety training is required by OSHA under specific rules.
For example, before any worker is allowed to drive a forklift around a
yard or a warehouse, a competent person has to train the operator and
recertify the person at regular intervals.
Other OSHA rules, such as those dealing with emergency response,
confined space entry, trenching and other areas, also have very specific
training and education requirements.
The OSHA Web site (www.osha.gov) provides more specifics.
OSHA at one point considered issuing a mandatory training rule aimed
at all companies, forcing all employers to consider the safety hazards of
their jobs and train workers on how to avoid them.
The proposed rule was withdrawn and it was turned into a set of
voluntary guidelines.
But any company that doesn’t train and educate workers on how to do
a job safely is begging for trouble.

No training – killed on her first day
A styrofoam plant in Columbus, OH, had to close its doors after a
temporary worker was killed an hour before her very first shift was coming
to an end.
She was only supposed to sweep the floors around an assembly line, but
no one told her anything and out of a desire to do a good job, she entered
an area where she wasn’t supposed to be (safety locks had been disabled).

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She was crushed to death when she tried to clean inside a machine that
suddenly started up.
The company was engulfed in prosecutions and litigation, criminal
charges by the Department of Justice, OSHA violations and civil wrongful
death suits by the widower.
The legal nightmare forced a multi-million dollar plant to close its doors
– all for failure to train a temp sweeping the floors.

Getting safety training right
Selecting the right kind and the right amount of required safety training
shouldn’t be very difficult, but some companies still struggle to get it right.
Because of ever-increasing production demands, it’s often difficult to pull
large numbers of workers away from the production floor and put them in
a classroom for classical safety training.
Self-paced, computer-based training programs can help. Targeted
training in small bites is often more effective than long lectures in
classroom settings.
That’s why “toolbox talks” for just 5 or 10 minutes prior to the start of
every shift are very popular and effective and have grown well beyond just
the construction industry.

Safety training, the right and the wrong way
A big mistake companies make in the way they conduct safety training
is that it is focused more on satisfying the paperwork needs of the company
than on the actual educational needs of the workers.
Many companies still sit groups of workers down for required safety
training and care more about collecting the signatures of the workers
acknowledging that they have received the minimum required training than
on making sure that the workers really got the education necessary to keep
themselves safe and healthy on the job.
If training is “pro-forma” and designed to cover the rear-ends of the
company and its managers just in case the company should be unlucky

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enough to have an accident or be targeted for an OSHA inspection,
workers aren’t dumb, and they will pick up on that.
If employees see the company doesn’t appear to think that safety and
safety education are important, they won’t think it’s very important, either.

3. Enforcement
The third leg of the stool of the technical side of effective safety
programs is enforcement, also undeniably of equal importance.
Consistent enforcement of safety policies, rules and regulations, both the
mandatory OSHA rules and any additional safety policies companies
choose to adopt because of their unique workplace challenges, constitutes a
key building block of any successful safety program.
Having an effective enforcement program in place, accompanied by a
progressive discipline policy when necessary, shows that companies are
serious about safety.
In effect, companies are saying to their employees: “We will make sure
that you follow these safety rules for your own good – and everyone else’s.”

Effective enforcement
Effective enforcement entails that managers and supervisors should hold
workers accountable for their actions, as long as the people entrusted to
their care have been taught how to do things right.
If workers knew very well how to do a job safely, and specific safety
procedures were still not allowed, then it’s time to call someone’s attention
to it.
Failure to enforce safety rules, especially out of expediency in the rush
to get a job finished, is a clear sign to the workers that the company doesn’t
care – as long as the job gets done.
If some people are allowed to cut corners and get away with it, others
will follow. And safety lapses and injuries will inevitably follow, too.

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Although consistent and visible enforcement of safety rules is important,
just as important is the attitude with which a company approaches its
enforcement program.
A “gotcha!” approach in which supervisors, managers or safety
professionals lie in ambush just to catch workers not wearing their safety
glasses, or not tying off on a construction job, has its limitations.
If the name of the game is to catch people and discipline them, workers
learn that game quickly, and learn how to avoid getting caught.
They’ll just get better and better at cutting corners when managers
aren’t looking.
They can win that game, although it will probably be a loser’s race to
the lowest rung of the ladder until someone gets hurt. If you push
aggressively, you will get pushback. Any action begets a reaction.

The best kind of enforcement is self-policing
Enforcement programs are much more effective if companies and their
managers clearly show that they want to enforce safety rules because they
care about their people.
They don’t want any worker to hurt himself or herself because a job
wasn’t done in the safest way, for their own protection as well as for the
protection of those around them.
The safest workplaces are those where the workers have developed a
true sense of interdependence. They know that the safety of all of them
depends on every single one of them carrying out his or her task safely
and efficiently.
The best policing of safety rules and policies is not carried out with the
“gotcha!” mentality. On the contrary, the best policing is self-policing.
The safest workplaces are those where little discipline is needed because
workers do their best and police each other.
That’s the kind of workplace where one co-worker will tell another:
“Hey, Joe, put on your face shield. I know someone who got hurt here
when a flying object came right into his eye. I know your kids. I want you

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to be able to see them when you get home tonight.”
If a safety professional can get the workforce to the point where
workers tell each other to follows safety rules for their own sake (instead
of warning them because a manager is coming around the corner to catch
people), they’ve gone a long way toward making their workplace as safe
as possible.

From the technical side of safety to the human side
The first three “E” elements of a successful safety program, Engineering,
Education and Enforcement, deal principally with the technical side of a
safety manager’s job.
Although it’s difficult enough to keep up with the technical side, this is
still the relatively easier part of the job.
After all, physical hazards can be spotted and eliminated or mitigated.
Education and training requirements are spelled out somewhere in
government regulations and can be followed to the letter of the law.
And other specific rules can be downloaded off the OSHA Web site,
while discipline and enforcement programs can be put in place to make
sure that people follow them.
Most safety professionals find that dealing with people is the harder
part of the job.
To be sure, even the first three elements can probably be dealt with
more effectively if they are approached from the people side.
For example, it’s easier to spot physical hazards in the plant if the
workers themselves, who are closest to the production floor, are actively
involved in the safety program and have their eyes and ears wide open for
possible new or unseen hazards.
Safety training and education will be more effective – and workers will
retain and put into practice more of it – if it’s clear that the education is
aimed at keeping workers safe, not at satisfying some paperwork
requirement for company management.

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And even enforcement and compliance with safety rules will be more
effective if workers police themselves and have bought into safety as
something that everyone is responsible for, not just management.
The people side of safety cannot be ignored in any area of a successful
safety program.
There are three specific elements of any effective safety management
plan that deal explicitly with the human dynamics of safety, regardless of
the specific environment, or what kind of engineering controls must be in
place, or what specific training and education programs are necessary, or
what OSHA or other rules have to be enforced.
These elements dealing with the people side of Safety are Emotion,
Empathy and Empowerment.

4. Emotion
No safety program can be effective unless people’s emotions are taken
into account – and given a defined role in the design of the safety program.
Safety professionals should try to understand their employees’ feelings,
manage to get them to express their feelings, and should not be afraid to
show their own feelings.
It’s all about showing they really care about safety and putting
something of their own emotions into showing it, and being able to get the
workers to do the same.
When managers set the example they really care, and workers can relate,
those workers will eventually follow that example and develop a sense of
caring as well, about their own safety as well as about the safety of others.
How do people show they care? Workers show they care when they
report hazards. But signs of caring don’t always have to be negative and
add to the negative reinforcement often prevalent in safety programs.
Workers also show they care, perhaps even more so, when they report
safe behaviors by their co-workers in addition to the unsafe behaviors.

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Ideally, they spend just as much time reporting safe as well as unsafe
behaviors. If they say something to their co-workers when they see them
behaving safely or unsafely, simply because they care, it is a powerful show
of emotion that builds a healthy rapport.
Of course safety managers themselves ideally set the example by
showing they care. The next phase is to develop safety leaders among the
workforce who can do the same – stop and report safe and unsafe
conditions and acts whenever they see them, paying just as much attention
to positive reinforcement by reporting safe behaviors as well as to the
negatives of unsafe conditions or behaviors.
True safety leaders inspire people to be accountable. People want to
follow leaders. If safety managers can get followers to be self-motivated
about safety, safety will improve.
In a system where self-policing becomes the rule, safety managers
probably won’t have much to do in the area on enforcement.

The value of positive reinforcement
At FirstGroup America, Inc., the parent company of Greyhound Lines
and a number of other transportation companies, workers can’t enter the
premises without a little booklet in their pockets that used to be called
“passports” (you needed a passport to get in).
The booklet contained forms in triplicate (one for the employee, one for
the employee’s supervisor and one for company headquarters) for people to
“write up” a co-worker for doing something good about safety, even if it
was just following the rules.
Mike Murray, CEO of FirstGroup, said the exercise might sound like a
big paper chase, but it wasn’t. Whenever submission of “good” write-ups
slacked off, injury rates would rise soon thereafter. To the rank-and-file
employees, the passport program became the convincing evidence that the
company really cared about safety.
Safety programs are most effective when they’re personal. That means
they’re based on human dynamics and take into account that safe work
practices depend on human interactions between supervisors and workers,

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or between co-workers. People deal with each other emotionally and react
to each other emotionally.
When safety managers and all managers and supervisors who influence
worker behavior are really feeling it, when they show through their
emotions that they care, that’s when people start caring at all levels of the
organization, too.
It’s not easy to get there.
At first, people may feel uncomfortable saying positive things to each
other, or reporting negative behaviors. They may want to avoid the risk of
being labeled as “management toadies.”
As a matter of fact, getting people to speak up about near-hits,
near-misses and close calls is one of the most difficult things to achieve
in any safety program.
But the reward, if you can get them to that point, is worth it. If people
do start speaking up about those close calls, those occasions can become
wonderful opportunities for teaching safe behavior and/or eliminating
safety hazards.
It takes courage to speak up – and courage is a much-welcomed
byproduct of emotion that fortunately can be taught and learned.
For workers, it’s easier to keep on walking and pretend they didn’t see
anything when they see a co-worker take off his respirator or his eye
protection because it was getting hot and uncomfortable.
Why get in the co-worker’s face? He knows what he’s doing. He’s
responsible for his own actions. It’s a natural reaction to want to avoid
getting involved.
Involvement takes caring and emotion. Mustering the courage to speak
up, despite a possible negative reaction from the other person, can save an
eye or even a life in some circumstances. And when people are motivated
enough to care, they will speak up.

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The best trainers are people’s peers
One of the most effective ways of inspiring people to behave safely at all
times is to ask people who have suffered accidents or near-misses to speak
to groups of workers just like them.
When those injured victims get emotional about how they saw the light,
and how they got a second chance to change their behavior and explain
why now they always choose the safe way of doing things, that’s when it
can sink in.
You can only get through to people (many of whom start out believing
that accidents will never happen to them, always to someone else) if they
can see themselves in the situation being described.
A worker just like them who had an accident or a close call is capable of
making his or her peers see themselves in a similar situation.
Getting people to see themselves in other people’s shoes is the most
effective technique for changing behavior.
Safety training works best if it can be made personal, made emotional
and made graphic.
Examples always speak louder than words.
You can tell workers a thousand times not to put their fingers into a
machine and not to disable the safety guard just to be able to clear a jam a
little quicker.
But a peer who lost a finger in a machine will always make the case a
thousand times more effectively. The most effective method of safety
training is storytelling. And people who have been there usually do the best
job of it when they speak with conviction.

Emotional intelligence
Another relevant e-word term closely related to emotion is “emotional
intelligence.”
When people have acquired a degree of emotional intelligence, they have
the ability to put off immediate (and perhaps seemingly good) consequences

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for more beneficial long-term consequences.
Emotional intelligence leads people to sacrifice some things today for the
greater good later. It means that they have learned to clear a machine jam
the proper way and not to get around that safety guard, thereby risking
permanent injury.
It means that they have learned to put that cell phone down while
driving in their cars. They’ll miss making that call now, but they know they
won’t risk a car crash due to inattentive driving.
Emotional intelligence includes the ability to realize the consequences of
one’s actions and behaviors. Avoiding unpleasant consequences gives people
the rationale to do what they want to do.
People will do something either because they actively want something,
or because they want to avoid something. They want to do a good job
because it gives them self-satisfaction and self-respect, in addition to a
decent paycheck.
They may also do something right because they want to avoid the
consequences and the costs of doing it wrong, either to themselves or to
their families. They don’t want to get hurt or sick, miss work and
paychecks, or be disciplined or lose a job. They certainly don’t want to
become the object of an “investigation.”
Emotional intelligence is not something that people either have or lack.
It can be taught and trained, through a carefully developed workplace
culture and through the examples of respected co-workers and supervisors.

5. Empathy
Successful safety programs are built on a culture in which people are not
afraid of showing emotion. But empathy must go hand-in-hand with
emotions.
Safety programs function best when safety professionals, as well as other
managers and supervisors having interactions with workers, show people
that they have compassion for their situation and they show this empathy

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with actions, not just words.
For instance, effective safety leaders set the example for safe behavior by
not texting on their cell phones themselves while they’re driving around the
plant. They show the workers that they always put their safety helmets on
in hardhat areas, even if they’re only passing through briefly.
Empathy is making safety training and education a two-way
conversation to show that trainers really care about the workers being
taught. A one-way conversation that simply instructs workers to “follow
the rules” is devoid of all empathy.
Empathetic safety leaders take the time to understand and to learn
what’s on people’s minds.
They give advice – not just instructions.

Emotions can be positive or negative, but empathy’s always positive
Psychological research has shown that even one single negative
inappropriate interaction between a worker and a supervisor can have
harmful effects on a worker’s behavior for years to come.
If workers feel wronged, personally insulted or attacked, they will likely
push back – just to show the supervisor that they can’t be bullied. They will
engage in such negative behavior, expending a lot of negative energy, even if
it is to their own detriment and may lead them to engage in unsafe
behavior.
Discipline may be necessary in some cases of willful behavior such as
horseplay or sabotage, but should be carefully administered because of the
probable negative consequences.
From the point of view of long-term consequences, positive
reinforcement is almost always better than negative reinforcement.
Both are full of emotions, but the emotions involved in discipline and
negative reinforcement are always negative, while there is no possibility
that the empathy involved in positive reinforcement will generate negative
energy.

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6. Empowerment
Empowerment is the final e-word relevant in creating a successful safety
culture. In some circles, the word empowerment has acquired a negative
connotation in today’s economic environment.
Sometimes empowerment is used as a substitute for making people do
more with fewer resources out of economic necessity.
“We don’t have anyone else to help you with this anymore, so we’re
going to ‘empower’ you to do it all by yourself – in addition to your
regular work, of course.”
That’s a typical phrase many a middle-level manager has probably heard
from superiors these days.
True empowerment in the safety area should mean something totally
different.
• Do people feel empowered to stop an assembly line if they see an
unsafe condition?
• Do people feel empowered to work at a safe pace even if it is
known that there is a big rush to finish a job on time, perhaps
even with a bonus in the offing?
• Do people show ownership of safety?
• Does each individual worker show he or she feels empowered to
make the right decision out of safety considerations?
• Are the workers self-motivated to do the job safely and avoid
injuries at all times out of a sense of ownership for the cause of
safety?
• Do they show a commitment to safety?
• Are they telling themselves to do their jobs safely even when it
may take a little longer and even when no one is watching?
When the answer to each of those questions is affirmative, then that’s
the kind of self-motivation that shows a true sense of empowerment in the
safety sphere. Too bad that “empowerment” has taken on some negative

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connotations in today’s economic environment.
Otherwise it’s a terrific principle that embodies the best of the
self-regulated workplace that values its positive safety culture.

The importance of using the right language
The distortion of the word “empowerment” is just one example of how
language is an important part of any safety culture.
After all, language – both the vocabulary used in verbal communication
along with the so-called non-verbal “body language” – is how people
express themselves and show their emotions.
The correct use of language can make or break a safety program.
A simple example can illustrate how certain words have negative
connotations and how it may be possible to use substitute words that lack
all traces of negativity and conjure up positive ideas instead.
Such language changes can be important to change the safety culture of
a workplace. For example, perhaps it would be better if an alarm clock
could be renamed an “opportunity clock.”
Why is it alarming to have to wake up and go to work? It should be an
opportunity to jump out of bed and achieve something during a new day.
Similarly, it is better to have a culture in which people strive to “achieve
success” in safety through positive reinforcement rather than “avoid
failure” through negative reinforcement.
Accidents and injuries are failures.
Good safety coaching is a success.
Much of the safety literature is full of references to “accidents,” which is
actually a bad word to use for safety professionals. An accident sounds like
something that couldn’t have been prevented or controlled.
Most injuries in the workplace can be controlled – that should be the
passionate belief of serious safety professionals.
“Incident” is not a good substitute for accident, either. It’s just a lame

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euphemism. Perhaps safety pros would do well to call things what they are
– injuries. Injuries can be – and should be – controlled and avoided.

More on accidents, investigations, committees and teams
“Investigation” is another word that conveys the wrong message. When
there is an injury or a near-miss, companies typically launch an
investigation into a particular safety event.
But what message does that send to workers? A bad one. No one wants
to be “investigated.” The FBI investigates serious interstate crimes. Workers
want no part of it.
The word investigation conjures up the idea that a move is a afoot to
find someone to blame – and the worker involved in the near-miss or injury
will naturally assume that it’s going to be him or her who’s going to be
saddled with the blame, and targeted in the investigation.
Root cause analysis all too often is a rush to judgment to blame human
error for whatever happened. In most cases, sure enough, human error can
be found. But any number of contributing factors are also involved. And
identifying those contributing factors may be much more important to
prevent future occurrences of the same kind.
Rather than announcing that an “accident investigation” will be opened
after an injury or near-miss, it would be much better to say that managers
and workers will together attempt to find out what happened and what
circumstances were contributing factors to make sure that no one else in
the operation will ever have to face the same risk again.
Now that’s something most workers might actually want to collaborate
on, instead of seeing themselves as the target of an “investigation” – and
clamming up for fear that anything they might say will be held against
them in some proceeding in which they feel like they’re in the hot seat.
Words mean different things in different organizations, and anyone
involved in safety training had better be aware of what those special
meanings are – or any effort is doomed to fail.
For example, at the Coca Cola company, a “committee” was known in
that particular company’s culture as a place where ideas were sent to die a

Page 20


slow death or be “committeed to death.”
So if people were asked to serve on a safety committee, there were never
any volunteers.
Union environments tend to frown on the word “team” – they don’t like
small 10-person teams to be carved out of the rank-and-file. That feels too
much like “divide and conquer.”
To labor unions, everybody’s on the same team, according to Terry
Mathis, a safety consultant from ProAct who spoke at the 2009 National
Safety Council congress.

The hallmark of a successful safety culture
How do you know when a company has attained a successful safety
culture, where safety Engineering is in place, where safety Education is
adequate and tailored to the needs of the workers, where a safety
Enforcement program is effective, where safety is felt with Emotion,
Empathy and Emotional intelligence, and where people feel Empowered to
make the right decisions for the sake of safety?
Here’s a self-test that can be applied in all workplace settings.
Can every worker answer a resounding “yes” to three simple questions:
1. Can I do it?
2. Will it work?
3. Is it worth it?

1. Can I do it?
To be able to do a job safely, to achieve the required production goals
but at the same time to be sure that they can go home just as safe and as
healthy as when they started the job, workers have to believe that they have
had the right training to do the job and do it safely.
They have to believe that they have adequate resources to be able to
finish the tasks and do so safely.

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This question comes down to self-efficacy and self-confidence. Without
those factors present, companies will have a workforce that is unsure of
itself and prone to making mistakes that can get the workers themselves
hurt as well as others around them.

2. Will it work?
Do the safety leaders themselves, as well as all individual workers,
believe that the processes in place will keep people safe and injury-free? Do
they really believe that reporting near-hits instead of sweeping them under
the rug is the right thing to do for the overall cause of safety?
Do they believe it will bring the company closer to the ideal of an
injury-free workplace? Do they believe the safety policies are the right ones?
Do they believe in their hearts that an injury-free workplace is actually
possible, or are there still some people who think it’s inevitable that people
will get hurt because it’s just a dangerous job?
If there are still some people who are not so sure about these things –
and these attitudes can be measured through anonymous surveys – that
means it may be time for some more education.
Some people need to be educated a little more about why safety is
so important.
There is a subtle but significant difference between training and
education. Typical safety training puts people in a classroom, where a
trainer goes through the safe way of doing a job and collects signatures
from all attendees to prove the subject was covered.
It sometimes seems that it is designed more for the needs of the
company (being able to prove that the required training was done
according to the regulations if there is ever any question or inspection) than
for the real needs of the employees being trained.
Education requires that the people being taught really understand the
rationale for the material being taught. It also requires evidence that they
really “get it.”

Page 22


3. Is it worth it?
This question addresses the real belief system of the workers. Do they
believe all the extra stuff they do for safety is worth it? Are people shown
the statistics, like the Total Recordable Rate (TRR) coming down, or better
still, some positive leading indicators, to prove that safety’s worth it?
And even when they are shown the stats, this persuasion process also
has to go beyond mere numbers.
People have to feel personally – emotionally – that it’s worth it and that
it’s the right thing to do. Workers have to believe that it’s worth it to
always don safety gear so they’ll always be able to go home to their
families in one piece at the end of their shifts.
When people believe a safe workplace culture is worth the effort, then
they have become truly interdependent. They depend on their co-workers
and their supervisors and managers and vice-versa, and they feel their
co-workers have their back. Trust is a necessary element to create this true
feeling of interdependence.

Why caring is better than making them fearful
It is possible to get people to behave safely by personalizing these
positive emotions of trust and interdependence. It is also possible to drive
behavior through fear, the fear of being injured on the job, or the fear of
being fired or disciplined if safety rules are broken.
However, safety managers would do well to be careful with fear as a
motivator. Fear can only be effective as a motivator if it is accompanied by
a strategy to avoid what the person is being made afraid of.
If it isn’t accompanied by such a strategy, fear can be merely paralyzing,
and can actually induce unsafe behavior. In other words, it’s fine to make
people afraid of being burned by a hot oven. But they have to believe that
the safety gear they have been provided with, face shields, safety boots,
gloves, etc., if properly used, can keep them from suffering that terrible
fate.
The first step toward creating a work force that believes the job can be
done safely is to create a group of people who are failure avoiders. Failure

Page 23


avoiders are definitely better than failure accepters. Those who accept
failure think that it is inevitable that there will be accidents some day.
These failure accepters are also in need of more education.
Failure avoiders are one step up from failure accepters. Failure avoiders
generally take this attitude out of fear – fear of being terminated or
otherwise disciplined, or fear of being injured.
Eventually it is better to move people from merely being failure avoiders
to active success seekers, people who believe in an injury-free workplace as
not just an ideal to strive for, but something that is possible to attain and
they can play an active part in themselves.

Creating positive leading indicators
Actively caring safety cultures do not just measure negative safety
statistics like accidents, injuries, near-hits or the Total Recordable Rate.
Measuring those is a question of loss control. After it’s happened, there’s
nothing more you can do about it.
Caring safety cultures also measure positive “leading” indicators that
can be accurate predictors of safe behavior and injury-free workplaces.
A leading indicator could be the number of safety toolbox talks held in
the week. It could be an accounting of the number of positive safety
interventions by workers.
• How many times did they tell someone to put on his or
her respirator?
• How many times did they praise co-workers for observing all
safety procedures as positive reinforcement?
• What did they do for safety last week, and/or what do they intend
to do for safety the following week?
Track it and hold them accountable for it – that can become a useful
leading indicator of safety.
How many times do people ask themselves: “How can I help the cause
of safety?” Maybe then they won’t just pass by a trip hazard and think
they’ll report it the next time when they’re not in such a hurry. Maybe

Page 24


then they’ll report it immediately – before the next worker falls and gets
injured.

Changing safety cultures
The tragic space shuttle Challenger accident in which a NASA crew of
astronauts died has been analyzed and dissected numerous times.
The Challenger blew up because the O-rings tended to get brittle in cold
weather and NASA had never launched a space shuttle before in such cold
conditions. That’s why the O-rings failed and the Challenger blew up,
killing the entire crew.
But that wasn’t the root cause of the disaster as subsequent reports
clearly showed. The root cause was the culture at NASA that stressed
achievements – missions – over caution and making sure all safety
procedures had been followed.
It was a culture in which too great a level of risk was accepted as a price
for achievement. Fortunately, the culture at NASA changed drastically and
immediately after the disaster. Without such a disaster, it often takes longer
to change safety cultures. But nobody wants or should need a disaster to
start changing the culture.
Good safety professionals don’t need a Challenger disaster to change the
safety culture in their workplaces. They have the tools to diagnose any
shortcomings in the culture before something happens.
And above all, they show they care.

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