New Safety Leadership Model to Building a Zero-harm Workplace

In previous articles, the accident statistics in Hong Kong had been reviewed, the perspectives of safety practitioners in Hong Kong had been consolidated through a survey with 253 participants involved. The challenges in Hong Kong identified included the lack of timely update of regulations and code of practices; un-utilized sentencing powers particularly on workers; prosecution-targeted accident investigations by the authority; inconsistency in management and safety requirements implementation at site level; lack of workers’ participation; and not incorporating safety considerations at design stage.

With current safety culture and management approaches, at least 1 out of 100 workers would get injured at work. The flattened injury and fatality trends indicated the necessity of further development of safety leadership and safety management approaches in order to achieve breakthrough of safety performance leading to the ambition of creating zero-accident workplace,

New Safety Leadership Model

The new model consists of 6 elements, with values and beliefs as the core of these elements. Values and beliefs are the basis of everything employees do in the organization. Clearly identify, communicate, and demonstrate these values and beliefs help leaders and organizations set the course of actions and provide intrinsic motivation for actions. The values and beliefs are also the driving force and as guiding principles of all decisions, and play a major role in the maturation of safety culture.

The first element is consultation, participation, and engagement. As the core values and beliefs are demonstrated and clearly communicated, consultation, participation, and engagement enable leaders and subordinates to formulate best practicable means to achieve the primary objectives of safe operations. With consultation, perspectives can be aligned and challenges resolved at earlier stage. Such exercise not only help enable more comprehensive identification of risks and designing safe work methods, but also help to draw greater unity and harmony among management and workers, and help build competence of those lack particular safety knowledge or awareness.

Second element is standardization. One of the challenges was that safety requirements were generic, ambiguous, or impracticable. With participation of different parties, the establishment of procedures can be site specific and job specific within an organization. The requirements will be specific, pragmatic, straight-forward, and agreed upon, thus compliance will be more likely to be achieved and willing to be adhered to. The same can be applied at enforcement level, where Labour Department can consult trade unions and companies for aligning practicable best practices and arrangements for different job activities.

Third, consistent implementation. When safety procedures are established, all efforts will be ruined unless implementation is consistent. Consistency in execution demonstrates management commitment, and enhances leaders’ integrity, trustworthiness, and respect, reinforcing leader’s situational favourableness. Instructions and resources should also be given to support thorough implementation and removal of obstacles. The consistency in planning and execution perhaps is most important this would either build or damage the trustworthiness and respect of a leader, which directly be translated into the cooperation from and commitment of colleagues and subordinates, resulting in the formation of safety culture.

Fourth, building competence. Generic training that is applicable to all sites and projects may not cover specific risks of performing the job activities at specific sites or areas. With site specific and job specific assessment and safety requirements, safety training will be tailored to enhance competence level of workers at that site or area. Workers will also be equipped not only the knowledge of safety rules, but the rationale behind the requirements, reinforcing their intrinsic motives to compliance.

The fifth element is ongoing and close-loop Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle. The PDCA cycle is described in standards of the International Standard Organization. The crucial part of this element is the proactivity and close-loop cycle. When activities are planned in advance, appropriate planning with involvement of different expertise can be achieved, and challenges can be resolved at earlier stage.

Close-loop cycle means that agreed actions are followed through, especially after audit, inspection, or accidents. The improvement actions will be followed up until proper implementation to rectify situations and to prevent recurrence. Through this element, continual improvement can be achieved.

Last but not least, lead where you are. Many would believe that one must be in certain position to have the responsibility and capability to lead, thus allowed this belief to become the very excuse of not becoming the example they want to see in others. In fact, one does not need to be at manager level to be effective influencer. One can lead at their position by striving to act in accordance to the values and beliefs, followed the PDCA cycle, and further advance their leadership and influence by learning to understand organizational culture, take into account human factors and diagnose the situation to apply appropriate behaviours to improve safety culture. Everyone’s leadership at their position will bring current performance to the next level. On the contrary, example of poor practices can also damage company’s culture.

Truly, everyone deserves to work in a safe and healthy environment. The existing safety management approach is insufficient to break through the stagnation of safety performances in HK. By focusing on the simple approach, the new model enable leaders to be more resilient and draw closer to zero-harm workplace and bring Hong Kong’s safety performance to a more advanced level. With a new perspective, behavior will change and what seemed impossible can be realized.