Safety Speaker John Shares, Success Breeds Complacency

As a safety speaker I have discovered in the field of safety, it is ironic that the better your safety performance the more likely people will become complacent. Employees can become complacent and let their guard down. Management can become complacent and believe, “We are now a safe workplace.” As you know, safety is not something you achieve; it is something you always must work at and keep moving forward. There is a self-improvement slogan that says, “If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward.” It certainly would apply to safety performance. Today, I want to discuss management or leadership complacency and how to prevent it and overcome it if it already exists.

We’ve Made It To The Top, Now Let’s Quit!

No one in the corporate world runs a marketing campaign, achieves market dominance and then thinks, “We’ve made it to the top so we can cut back on our marketing activities and budget that got us there.” Why then would they think once you have achieved an admirable level of safety performance you can stop doing the activities that got you there. I could tell you story after story of companies I have studied who improved their safety performance by involving employees in many activities that drive safety improvement and then stopped. They had regular safety kickoffs and brought in experts to reinforce their safety message. The sad part is things don’t often go bad right away. If they did, you could make a course correction and get back on track. Typically, they cut back and see no negative result in performance.

Momentum carries you forward only for a limited time. Then, the injuries start increasing and unfortunately, the first warnings are serious. You have read of such stories in the news. Yesterday’s safety leader suddenly has a catastrophic event. Investigations reveal how they didn’t remain vigilant and slowly went from the best to the worst.

What Can Safety Leaders Do?

Safety speakers and safety leaders need to realize part of the problem is we don’t always, “Toot our own horn.” The only safety reports to leaders we make are ones that show the decrease in injuries. We need to report to them the activities we have done to create that decrease. Tell your leaders last year we held a Safety Stand Down or Kickoff at the beginning of the year. We followed up with monthly/quarterly meetings at the beginning or end of each shift. We brought in a professional safety speaker (guess who I’d recommend?) and people learned and had a great time. Tell them how many people were involved on your volunteer safety team. Praise to top leadership those supervisors who were true champions of safety. Report on all the activities you used your safety budget for and make sure you remind them of your safety successes.

Remind Them of The Increased Profit

As a safety speaker, I have written before any time the safety team lowers the dollars a company pays for insurance, injuries, or damage to property, that money saved is now profit. Safety creates a return on investment even better than other money invested. When you invest in safety you gain the increased production, profit and success and you also have the satisfaction of knowing you sent people home to their families safely at the same time.

Some Action Items You Can Take

If you are bumping up against beliefs or limitations being put upon you by leaders or people who have lost their way, the best way to change their beliefs is by using questions. My favorite question for safety professionals to use begins with a little bit of homework. If you can and if you are in a business that has a sales department, find out if their budget has been cut as much as yours. Or, check to see if it has increased in the past few years.

Many corporate leaders understand that marketing and sales are never “finished.” They know if they stop advertising or marketing, their competition will take over the market. Therefore, in order to maintain their current market position they must at least maintain the status-quo. If they want to increase market share they need to increase their efforts.

I bet this is beginning to sound familiar to you. If any leader ever thinks their company has achieved a “safe workplace,” they are kidding themselves. As in marketing, you must keep doing all the efforts it took to get you to your current safety status and in order to improve, you must increase those activities. The day you cut back on your safety meetings or celebrations, you begin the path to where you once were and that means more injuries.

A big difference is leadership sees what the marketing department is doing. They can make the connection between the marketing activity and sales results. We need to remind management of the importance of you and your team’s activities. If you remain silent instead of telling your own success stories, you risk cutbacks.

So, at the beginning, I suggested questions were the best way to create a changed belief. How does this apply to this situation? You might ask, “I wonder if our market position would go down if we made the same cutbacks we are making in our safety program? I wonder how many injuries we will sustain and how much more that will cost in the long run?”

A Suggested Solution John Drebinger Presentations Can Help With

Some of my most successful clients have used more than one of my programs to improve their safety performance. When I am asked as a consultant what I would recommend it would be the following.

First, I come to a location and as a safety speaker and present to all the leadership from the first-line supervisors to the plant manager or CEO. At that meeting, I give my seminar, “Safety For Effective Leaders.” The outcome of this is to get all of your leadership aligned with your purpose. Also, they learn they are the true safety leaders and their employees look to them for expected safety performance. I share with them the real value of the safety department or team is to be the resource for the safest methods of doing their job productively and safely.

Second, I speak to all employees at the location and involve them in taking personal responsibility for their own safety and for the safety of those around them. Imagine a workplace where every employee is watching out for everyone else. That is the outcome of my presentation, “Would You Watch Out For My Safety?®” I teach them five reasons why they would want to watch out for other people on and off the job. I share three reasons people don’t and how to overcome them. Then I provide them with two techniques they can use to comfortably intervene and share safety with someone else. Finally, I explain how everyone should respond when someone cares enough to watch out for their safety.

Another Solution

I know many of you would love to have me come to your site to do one of my live presentations but you may not have the money or the ability to get everyone together. In order to help you out, I created a DVD of my presentation, “Ensure Your Safety.” If you would like more information about its contents and how to order it please go to: http://www.drebinger.com/shopping-cart/ensure-your-safety-dvd/
(Click Here) or read on later in this newsletter.

Solutions For Your Safety Challenges

When you need solutions for your safety challenges give Diane Weiss a call at 209-745-9419 and bring John to your site to discover injury preventing solutions. You can email her at diane@drebinger.com
Until next week,
I’ll be, “Watching Out For Everyone’s Safety™”
John
© 2015 John Drebinger Presentations
Permission to use granted when credited and contact information included. www.drebinger.com +1 209.745.9419