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Culture Change

By Martin Royal The Visible Leadership Paradox Over the years, I've had the opportunity to interview many workers in various industries, and a common theme often emerges: Executives are a significant source of distraction and, as a result, a potential safety liability when showing up at the work site. Some crews even stop work entirely when a manager, especially a senior or executive-level leader, arrives, creating a dilemma. On the one hand, we encourage leaders to be more visible, to prioritize site visits, and to conduct safety observations. Conversely, many leaders are hesitant because they've bought into the narrative that "managers are a

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Change management for safety (and anything else) is often critically important but almost always more challenging than expected. Before addressing red flags that derail change efforts, here’s a recap of some reminders to make effective, lasting change for safety. Step one is to mobilize your stakeholders with a clear “to be” vision and an agile change strategy that considers the readiness of your workforce. This involves establishing an aligned governance coalition to manage all efforts. Step two is to create momentum by communicating your vision through a network of change ambassadors, establishing new organizational skills and capabilities, and

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. In late 2021, we began working with a leading chemical manufacturing company to revamp their behavior-based safety (BBS) program. This organization has a strong safety culture and emphasizes safety as a core value. However, their BBS program had grown stale. This was due to an overly long checklist and overemphasis on quotas which led to “pencil whipping” cards and very negative perceptions of the program. Recognizing these limitations, we worked with EHS leaders to create an entirely new BeHOP® process which combined the best elements of both Behavior-Based Safety and Human and Organizational Performance. One of the

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. For more than 25 years, I’ve heard senior leaders speak passionately about having zero incidents. This is often done with heartfelt messages and personal commitments to make it happen. This is a good thing in many ways: It’s aspirational to strive for zero incidents. This fosters a mindset of internal control and taking charge of your own destiny, which should be reinforced by leadership. This often leads to the development of leading indicators like leader time in the field and action items completed (from worker feedback) to prevent incidents. Incidents typically drop if proper actions are taken on the front end. However,

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Over the last few years, we’ve been hearing over and over how hard it is to find high-quality employees for physically taxing jobs. In some cases, it’s difficult for employers to substantially raise wages and stay competitive. This leaves them in a position where candidate pools have shrunk and, in many cases, people applying for jobs have little hands-on experience. “We’re hiring people who don’t know how to use a shovel.” This creates insufficient personnel and the people that you do have are often stretched thin, which leads to a host of complications that compromise safety like

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By Eric Michrowski A leader once told me their safety strategy focused on driving actively caring within their organization. In his words, “If we care for our people, safety will take care of itself.” While actively caring is integral to building a robust safety culture, I would caution that it’s insufficient on its own. Actively caring means showing personal concern and appreciation for employees individually. When relationships with team members are firmly established, and employees feel appreciated, understood, and respected, they are more likely to demonstrate discretionary effort and go above and beyond to keep themselves and their coworkers safe. Actively caring

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