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Safety Leadership

By Eduardo Lan Most of the executives and senior leaders we talk to understand the crucial role that foremen and supervisors play in determining the success of any business, operation or project in all aspects related to productivity, quality and safety. After all, it is they, foremen and supervisors, who set the day-to-day agenda, tone, priorities and overall direction for all workers and lead the organizational subculture that drives daily decisions and behaviours out on the frontlines, where it most counts. It is no wonder, then, that frontline leadership is often referred to as the point at which "the rubber meets

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. There are many parallels between exceptional safety leadership and sports. It takes proper planning and execution to be a consistent winner. Doing things right on the front end influences the scoreboard on the back end…whether it’s Michigan vs. Ohio State or SIF rate reductions. Great leadership is great leadership, regardless of the context. Here are some lessons learned from the sports world to improve your own safety leadership. Recruit Better There’s an axiom in sports that “it’s as much about the Jimmys and Joes as it is the Xs and Os.” To be a winner, you’ve got to recruit

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. We have spent years working with organizations to improve safety leadership. This includes extensive coaching, training, and safety culture assessments. During assessments, we spend many hours with employees at all organizational levels getting safety feedback via interviews, focus groups, walkarounds, surveys, and other sources. We’ve also done front-line safety culture training for two decades. During this time, we’ve heard many recurring themes from employees about how to improve safety leadership. Here is a Top 10 list of recommendations for improvement from the perspective of front-line employees.   1. Don’t Blame People When They Get Hurt Some management groups use

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By Eric Michrowski and Eduardo Lan While the current pandemic introduced many critical business and safety challenges, in many organizations it became a catalyst for leaders to drive significant positive progress against key safety leadership competencies. A few safety leaders expressed how their organization made 6 years of safety leadership progress in the span of 6 weeks. In a recent study of senior executives and executive safety leaders that our Propulo Science team conducted, a few very positive themes emerged across a variety of industries: 88% reported an increase in leaders actively caring since the start of the pandemic;84% reported an increase in

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Organizational leaders are often looking for “the next big thing” when it comes to safety improvement. This is good! We should all be striving for continuous improvement. Unfortunately, we may abandon lessons learned from the past in search of future improvement. For many years, Tiger Woods famously revamped his near-perfect swing in search of perfection. This resulted in a major slowdown in his collection of major championships. For all leaders, it is important to build on past successes when implementing new improvement efforts. For many years, cognitive approaches were used to influence employee attitudes for safety. Recent developments

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. The Challenge Although workplace incident rates have steadily declined by 28% over the last decade, rates for serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) have remained virtually unchanged.1 Further, organizations often focus on “recordables” without adequately addressing, prioritizing, and communicating about incidents (and close calls) with SIF potential. As an example, someone spraining an ankle falling 20 feet from a telephone line is quite different than the same person doing so stepping out of a truck. Leaders need to reorient their thinking regarding SIFs. Recordables and first-aids should continue to be monitored, addressed, and discussed. However, overemphasizing these metrics does a

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