10 steps key to creating safety culture, consultant tells Safety Council

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

The point of fos­ter­ing a work­place cul­ture of safety is so employ­ees almost don’t think about it any­more, accord­ing to Troy Boughan, an Ohio Bureau of Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion busi­ness consultant.

“Safety is,” he stated with empha­sis on the “is.” “You get to a point where you don’t really think about safety—it’s just the nature of your operations.”

That’s impor­tant because at-risk behaviors—actions like abus­ing drugs at work or tak­ing a short­cut in a process—can lead to acci­dents, lost work­days or fatal­i­ties, accord­nig to Boughan.

“And you don’t know when that one fatal­ity may come,” he said.

Boughan spoke to the Galion Safety Coun­cil at its Feb. 16 meet­ing about the BWC’s 10-step safety plan. He fleshed out the steps in the con­text of cre­at­ing a safety cul­ture, using the word “cul­ture” as an acronym for the concept’s ele­ments: com­mu­ni­ca­tion, urg­ing, lead­er­ship, team­work, under­stand­ing, recog­ni­tion and empowerment.

The Ohio BWC’s 10-step safety plan

1. Vis­i­ble, active senior man­age­ment leadership

2. Employee involve­ment and recognition

3. Med­ical treat­ment and return-to-work practices

4. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion

5. Timely noti­fi­ca­tion of claims

6. Safety and health process coor­di­na­tion and employer education

7. Writ­ten ori­en­ta­tion and train­ing plan

8. Writ­ten and com­mu­ni­cated safe work practices

9. Writ­ten safety and health policy

10. Record-keeping and data analysis

Steps one, two and four are involved in orga­ni­za­tional cul­ture; steps three and five in loss-control cul­ture; and steps six through 10 are part of loss-prevention culture.

Source: ohiobwc.com; Troy Boughan, BWC busi­ness consultant

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is involved in seven of the ten steps. For exam­ple, vis­i­ble, active lead­er­ship from senior man­age­ment is impor­tant because “if you aren’t telling your employee what you expect, they’re not going to know what you want them to deliver,” Boughan said. Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion that you want injured employ­ees to return to work after appro­pri­ate med­ical care and that you also want employ­ees to alert man­age­ment of unsafe con­di­tions or actions is also cru­cial. Writ­ten poli­cies help com­mu­ni­ca­tion, too, he said.

Urg­ing comes in as well as com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Senior man­age­ment could urge oth­ers to pay atten­tion to safety con­cerns and invest in equip­ment upgrades as needed. Man­agers may speak safety, Boughan said, but if they don’t decide to invest in an equip­ment upgrade, for exam­ple, when a real safety issue is at stake, that speaks oth­er­wise. “Your actions have now defeated your voiced con­cern for safety,” he said. Urg­ing employ­ees to share their ideas or con­cerns about safety is part of devel­op­ing a safety cul­ture as well.

“Lead­er­ship is the most pow­er­ful com­po­nent of cul­ture,” Boughan con­tin­ued. The lead­er­ship gives employ­ees the vision and goals and the means to pur­sue them, as well as pro­vid­ing a role model for them. Then, get­ting employ­ees involved and rec­og­niz­ing them for their role strength­ens the com­pany. “If employ­ees are involved, they have own­er­ship; if they have own­er­ship, they accept respon­si­bil­ity and account­abil­ity,” Boughan said.

Team­work comes with hav­ing mul­ti­ple players—management, employ­ees, health care providers—working toward a com­mon goal: safety. “And just as a foot­ball team has a play­book, you need a play­book for bring­ing peo­ple back to work,” he said, after they’ve been injured. Claims fil­ing doesn’t need to be adver­sar­ial either, he said, and it can keep costs down if the cul­ture has a team feel and employ­ees don’t feel like they have to get legal con­sul­ta­tion for their claim.

Under­stand­ing comes in at almost every step in the BWC safety plan, accord­ing to Boughan. “Actions speak much louder than words,” he said, and man­age­ment has to work on under­stand­ing the mes­sage they’re send­ing with their actions. Writ­ten plans and poli­cies help employ­ees under­stand what’s expected of them, too. “How­ever, those writ­ten safety pro­ce­dures don’t do you any good if they’re sit­ting on a shelf gath­er­ing dust,” he said, so it’s bet­ter to keep them at the site they’re most likely to be needed. Also, “you can’t under­stand what’s hap­pen­ing in your work­place if you aren’t keep­ing track,” he said, so record-keeping and data analy­sis is also key.

Recog­ni­tion should be part of both man­age­ment and employ­ees’ work. Man­agers have to rec­og­nize the mes­sages they’re send­ing, the value that employee input has and the instances in which train­ing is needed to pre­vent safety issues. “The best acci­dent pre­ven­tion ideas come from dis­cus­sions with your employ­ees,” said Boughan. Man­age­ment should also use record-keeping to rec­og­nize what’s hap­pen­ing in the work­place and take any cor­rec­tive action that’s called for.

Lastly, empow­er­ment comes in espe­cially with active senior lead­er­ship and with employee involve­ment and recognition.

“Don’t be afraid to share power,” Boughan said. Involv­ing employ­ees and giv­ing them a voice in the process empow­ers them, as does rec­og­niz­ing them for a job well done. In addi­tion, “knowl­edge is power,” he said. “Empower your­self by know­ing what’s occur­ring in your work­place,” by keep­ing com­plete records and ana­lyz­ing them regularly.

All together the ten steps in the BWC safety plan help a com­pany “focus” on safety—leading to another of Boughan’s acronyms. The “focus” means a company’s employ­ees and man­agers Form One Com­mon Under­stand­ing of Safety. Accord­ing to Boughan’s wrap-up, that focus results in increased eco­nomic value, reduced BWC costs and and enhanced com­mu­ni­ca­tion and trust, among other benefits.

The Galion Safety Coun­cil will hold its next reg­u­lar meet­ing at 11:30 a.m. March 15 at the Amer­i­can Legion, 118 S. Mar­ket St., Galion. For more infor­ma­tion about the Galion Safety Coun­cil, visit galionsafetycouncil.com or call Janell Ben­ner at (419) 492‑2477.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Feb 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.