Changing Safety Through Behaviors

To transform safety through behavioral changes, you must seek out and understand your companies level of safety awareness and how to modify that awareness. You can do this by understanding why safety aspects are personal, relevant, and significant in such a manner that they influence your company’s choices and actions on a daily basis.

Personal

Define personal in regards to what is means to you?

Example:

• Personal is something that belongs to you, person rather than to anyone else

When does something become personal to you?

Example:

• Personal is something of grave importance to me
• My life, my family’s life and my friend’s lives

How do you create a work environment where employees have a personal relationship with other employees?

Examples:

• Group gatherings, where communicating and meeting people is the key focus
• Short Services Employees Procedure (Ensures that newly placed employees work under the direction of experienced personnel)
• Toolbox meetings (Ensure everyone attends and speaks up)
• Safety Meetings (Ensure group participation)

We want employees to bond and build personal relationships (We want this so they will lookout for one another and build a safer workplace)

You may wonder why for the above statement. Well, when people care for one another and know one another they are more likely to speak out and look out for each other. (It’s a community or a family when you achieve this goal)

If your employee’s, make safety personal for them and their coworkers your safety culture will transform positively.

Relevant

Define relevant and how it relates to your personal safety and those around you?

Examples:

• Relevant (Important) - closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand
• The candidate's experience is relevant to his/her job

When does something become relevant?

Examples:

• A task analysis is relevant to the job assignment
• A permit is relevant to the job scope
• The journeyman is relevant to the helper and vice versa

For each employee to be relevant (important) to each other consideration towards each coworker must exist.

This can be achieved by:

• Motivating all employees to work together on their paperwork such as a task analysis or a permit
• Coaching them on the importance of the document and how it can help them in their job task and keeping all crew members’ safe
• Congratulating groups of employees on jobs well done. Thus, reinforcing how each person is relevant
• Encouraging a behavioral based safety program and show the employee how their input is reducing incidents. They will take pride in achievements so post the data collected for all to see

Significant

Define significant and how it relates to your personal safety and those around you?

Examples:

• Sufficiently great or important to you
• To be worthy of attention or noteworthy
• Inspecting each tool before use
• Looking behind your vehicle before backing up
• Being your brother’s keeper

How do we create a work environment where every employees deems all     other employees as significant?

Examples:

• Encouraging a brother’s keepers work environment
• Having a site safety committee with at least one party from each craft attending the meeting
• Let them know their voice is being heard and you care, they care, we all care
• Have management attend meetings, walk the field, talk to the employees. They must feel and understand that management is listening and cares about the work environment

Goal

Once your company has merged together on a common perception of what personal, relevant, and significant is, you will notice an immense revolution in safety awareness and your company’s safety culture as a whole.

You will see a new company motto of:

• We care for one another and validating that care on a daily basis
• We preserve that all workers go home in the same condition that they arrived in
• We have unified attitude, that is intolerant of any level of injury
• We are family