Unlock the secrets to a robust safety culture with Tim Page Bottorff and Chris Ross, as we discuss the transformative power of personal commitment in the workplace. Episode 5 of 6 discussing Safety Climate Success Factors.
Host: Tim Page Bottorff
Guest: Chris Ross
https://safestart.com/file/idclip/
https://safetalk.buzzsprout.com/1032442/11286195-s8ep8-happiness-the-secret-to-organizational-performance
Unlock the secrets to a robust safety culture with Tim Page Bottorff and Chris Ross, as we discuss the transformative power of personal commitment in the workplace. Episode 5 of 6 discussing Safety Climate Success Factors.
Host: Tim Page Bottorff
Guest: Chris Ross
https://safestart.com/file/idclip/
https://safetalk.buzzsprout.com/1032442/11286195-s8ep8-happiness-the-secret-to-organizational-performance
Hey, welcome back to SafeT alk with SafeS tart. I'm Tim Page-Bottorff joining me today as fellow consultant, Chris Ross. Hey, Chris, welcome back to the podcast.
Chris Ross:Thanks, Tim, great to be back.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I'll tell you what I asked Chris back here again as we review the portions of the six climate success factors. And today we're going to cover Personal Commitment. And so a full copy of the white paper you'll find tucked away in our show notes. And so today we're going to cover three main areas of personal commitment, and that's a why is personal commitment important. B ways to demonstrate that you care about keeping your people safe. And then C ensuring that your people have the training and skills to do their job safely. So we always hear about the importance of personal commitment and safety. I always think of leaders who walk the talk being such a key to safety success. Do you see the same, Chris?
Chris Ross:Yeah, I agree with you, Tim. For an organization to succeed in safety it's got to start at the top and carry all the way through all the levels of leadership. In fact, you know, one of our success factors in safe start is leadership, commitment and buy in at all levels. It's so important for leaders to not only talk about safety but actively lead safety. One of the disconnects we sometimes find in organizations is there's lots of support for safety at the top and line. Employees are very interested in their own safety, but sometimes not as much commitment for safety in the middle. I've seen that before too.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I got to ask, though do you think it comes from? You know, sometimes those folks in the middle are measured more on production than safety or wait, could it be? They are kind of always being held accountable for tons per day or truck ship per week, but not so much on the leading elements of safety.
Chris Ross:Yeah, I think that's exactly it. There are some other issues, but I think sometimes there can be a misalignment of expectations, and I think another factor is that all senior leaders, managers and supervisors are concerned for safety. They don't always understand how to lead for safety, and that's what we'll talk about today how to give leaders some specific tools and skills to lead safety by demonstrating their own personal commitment.
Tim Page-Bottorff:All right, I'll tell you why. Why don't we start off with talking about how leaders can show how they care once you start there?
Chris Ross:Well, in the broadest terms, just getting to know people, you know their family their spouses, their partners, their kids? What do they do away from work, their sports, their hobbies, general? Interest stuff, but make it a point to get to know people on your team on a personal level. We're so much more than just our work titles.
Tim Page-Bottorff:You know, I gotta agree with that, Chris. When I go out on the shop floor I do a bit of that myself I see a picture of a kid or some kids on a toolbox and I'm gonna ask who they are. And so it's kind of easy to jump right to on the job safety when you're having these discussions, but also about off the job safety. So, for example, I'll get somebody to say, Okay, dad, if one of your kids comes to work for us and we put them under your care, what would you tell them is the most dangerous part of your job? And that gets the employee to think, like think a bit more about the hazards that they'll likely have, I think, over time, become complacent about.
Chris Ross:Yeah, great point, Tim. I really like asking questions and we'll talk more about that. One of the opportunities to ask questions takes place in lean manufacturing with Gemba walks. I'm a big fan of Gemba walks. I think it gives that opportunity for people to go out and have discussions with people.
Chris Ross:So one of the acronyms I recently learned to make Gemba walks more productive is SPPA, so the S is for schedule. It's important to schedule your walks in your calendar, for my experience they don't happen, or happen with enough frequency to make a difference. So it should happen daily for at least an hour, and I'd also like to have them scheduled at the same time so employees know to expect you. Remember you're there to help, not play a game of gotcha. But I think the scheduling's really important. P the purpose what's the focus of today's walk? Maybe it's 5S, maybe it's safety, maybe it's a new rule, or maybe it's just a conversation, and then people have the right people on your team. I think it's a tremendous opportunity to engage leaders at all levels supervisors, managers to go out and engage with employees on the block, and then action and follow-up. If your walks produce actions and they should make sure you build a feedback loop to the employees to let them know their input was heard and being paid attention to.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I really like that acronym. Let me just repeat it one more time for the listeners it's SPPA and the S starts again for schedule. The first P is about the purpose, the second P is about the people and the letter A is about action and follow-up. I get that right.
Chris Ross:Yep, you got it, Tim. You know, in the Safe Track, Larry Wilson had some advice for all of us which is, I think, really straightforward and important "Talk to people the way you wanna be talked to" I don't know what a golden nugget, and always thank them for their time. After all, they're helping us out.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I mean, aren't they? Oh, take care of your people. Listen, that's a good one. I really appreciate that. So that sounds really good. So talk to us a little bit more about what other leaders can do at the same time as caring.
Chris Ross:Yeah, I think first of all, it's important to recognize the elements of leading safety are all intertwined among the six success factors we've been talking about in this series. A few more skills that come to mind are really just basic management leadership concepts Like management by walking around MBWA, just being involved out on the floor, being visible. We talked a little bit about getting to know people and getting to know and understand the human factors that affect to them. Creating open dialogue, asking for input We'll talk a little bit more about that. Using questions to do that. Facing tough conversations we have to sometimes have those and the interesting thing about tough conversations it's not always tough for the person that's initiating it. Sometimes it's tough for the recipient. Building trust and engagement that was a whole series on that and then recognizing and promoting informal leaders really drives them up the engagement scale.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I agree I'd have to say MBWA. I've heard that concept before. It seems like it's just a really basic thing to do in practice. But I also see a lot of managers and supervisors who were locked away in their office and they're not really in touch with what's going on on the floor, so they're in a sense managing behind a desk as opposed to managing by walking around.
Chris Ross:Yeah, exactly, and the whole purpose of this is get to know people, creating that climate of trust and engagement, open communication, getting to know your people means demonstrating personal commitment to employees, and is it?
Chris Ross:not about being nice or liking everybody. It's about the importance of recognizing human factors in the workplace. What is caring about your about keeping your people safe mean to you personally, it means both the organizational accountability for creating safe conditions and also individual leaders taking action not only on external conditions, but human factors that may be affecting their team members' safety and performance. These factors might be physical, like fatigue or injury or illness, or they might be mental, like decision fatigue or distraction, due to conditions beyond their control. While some of these human factors originate outside the workplace, they can affect workers 24-7. So having a boss who offers worded tactics for being safe can have a huge influence on the worker's well-being. As a worker, it's hard to feel a sense of well-being. If you have good reason to anticipate, you can get seriously injured at work, and if there's no active workplace commitment to doing the things that keep people safe, it really sets people off. Our research has made a clear connection between happiness and well-being at work and better safety outcomes.
Tim Page-Bottorff:Yeah, to that end, just as you bring that up, I was just thinking about Rodd Wagner, our executive advisor, Rodd Wagner. He wrote us an article about well-being and happiness in the workplace, and so I'll actually be able to place that link to the podcast we recorded in the show notes as well. So let's talk about people systems, Chris.
Chris Ross:Yeah, another aspect of this is making a transition from telling to asking. It's so empowering to ask workers for their opinions. That's what we do out on Gamba Walks. That's what we just do in casual conversation. It helps gain their buy-in and commitment, not only for safety issues but even more importantly, for change or operational aspects. What I'm teaching SafeLead to supervisors one of the most popular activities is just going out into the workplace and striking up a safety conversation using some of the 20 questions we provide. They find out the participants after a few minutes that the workers are very excited that someone's actually asking for their opinion and listening to them. After all, you're getting them to talk about the most important person in the world themselves.
Tim Page-Bottorff:I like that. I mean, isn't this all about having conversations when safety is not an issue? I remember an old personal friend of mine told me oh, I get it now. This is all about normalizing, talking about safety and human factors. Do you get the same?
Chris Ross:Yeah, exactly it's, you know. Let's talk about safety when safety is not an issue.
Chris Ross:And it's also why we want people to talk about their close calls, not necessarily formally reporting as an official near miss, but just talking about the effect of human factors on their performance and actions, including the part about how it could have been worse than and the CERTs, and, just as we talked about on a previous episode, that really helps to normalize discussing human factors. One of the other things we talk about in both SafeLead and Safe Start and is developing a personal value statement for safety. Basically, it's just a sentence or two that answers the question why do I care about the safety of my people?
Tim Page-Bottorff:I love the personal value statements. I mean, throughout Safe Start we do it with Safe Start trainers. We even get our leaders to kick it off in the Safe Start leadership sessions. I mean, I think the personal value statement is also a great tool when our leaders use it to help articulate what I believe is support and commitment in the world of safety. It kind of shows I mean not kind it really shows why they personally care about the people and what's going on. And I also have to say that it's a pretty valuable part of having a difficult conversation with somebody, as we've discussed before, and having the leaders share why their work or safety is personally important to them. How huge is that?
Chris Ross:Yeah, that's, that's. That's such a show of commitment. And the other thing about personal value statement maybe not everybody has that same degree of support for safety, but when they hear the leader's personal value statement they can't deny that leader has a vision for safety. You know, in addition to awareness of human factors and safety, we need to address the people system structures in place to ensure that employees have sufficient training, experience and supervision to perform their jobs correctly, safely and to the right standard. Moreover, they need to have the opportunity to learn and practice procedures enough to use them confidently. In most industries, the use of operating procedures is given verbal emphasis to make sure you follow the procedures, but not action emphasis. In other words, we haven't practiced or drilled the detailed steps of work. Ensuring this practice is both an organizational and a leadership accountability. We all know it takes a lot of practice and reinforcement in order to build a new skill.
Tim Page-Bottorff:You know, that kind of really ties into ensuring that people have the training and the skills to do their job safely and at least to some level of a standard.
Chris Ross:Yeah, safety for many has been about policies and procedures, and that's important, but safety covers and influences so much more. What's missing in traditional safety is human factors, which we capitalize on and spend so much time talking about. If we start with the premise that people don't hurt themselves on purpose, but we do make mistakes and realize that engineering and administrative controls have their limits, we owe our people what we know about accident causation. SafeS tart is the missing piece for a lot, but SafeS tart's concepts extend far beyond safety and equality, production and performance.
Tim Page-Bottorff:Yeah, I have to bring it back. I know we're talking about Safe Lead here, but just real quick. There are some elements when we talk about critical decisions that have to be made or sometimes get forgotten. We place those in the flex units, which is in the client portal for everybody to address. I just wanted to point that out. I know we're talking about Safe Lead and the six climate success factors, but just a reminder for all of our listeners there.
Chris Ross:Yeah, those flex units are awesome. I think it was Larry said that's where the gold is. It's really the next step when we solve problems that lead to safety errors. We often solve production and quality problems. You said critical decisions, and that's what the flex unit addresses. It's all about using CERTs critical error reduction techniques to reduce our mistakes due to human factors like rushing, frustration, fatigue and complacency.
Tim Page-Bottorff:Yeah, those are great units. They do cover things like driving and conscious risk taking and even preventing back pain. There's so much more already and you can take them in order that makes sense to you, but when it comes up, you can call your client manager for more details. Based on that, Chris, I want to thank you for carving out some time for us today.
Chris Ross:It's been my pleasure, Tim.
Tim Page-Bottorff:And so, for Chris and for everyone who's been a part of this one, thank you so much for spending a part of your day with us. Remember, you can check out the entire white paper on the show notes and, as well, a link to Rodd's happiness podcast is going to be down there on the show notes too. I'm Tim Page-Bottorff for Safe Talk with SafeStart, and I'll see you down the road.