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Strategic Map for Change and Continuous Improvement for
Safety and Health
The following strategic map describes major processes and
milestones that need to be implemented to successfully implement
a change process for safety and health. This strategy is intended
to help you focus on the process rather than on individual tasks.
It is common for most sites to have a tendency to focus on the
accomplishment of tasks, i.e., to train everyone on a particular
concern or topic or implement a new procedure for incident
investigations. Sites that maintain their focus on the larger
process are far more successful. They can see the
"forest" from the "trees" and thus can make
mid-course adjustments as needed. They never lose sight of their
intended goals, and tend not to get distracted or allow obstacles
to interfere with their mission. The process itself will take
care of the task implementation and ensure that the appropriate
resources are provided and priorities are set.
Process Implementation Strategy:
Obtain Top Management "Buy-in" -
This is the very first step that needs to be
accomplished. Top managers must be on board. If they are
not, safety and health will compete against core business
issues such as production and profitability, a battle
that will almost always be lost. Management needs to
understand the need for change and be willing to support
it. Showing the costs to the organization in terms of
dollars (direct and indirect costs of accidents) that are
being lost, and the organizational costs (fear, lack of
trust, feeling of being used, etc) can be compelling
reasons for doing something different. Because losses due
to accidents are bottom line costs to the organization,
controlling these will more than pay for the needed
changes. In addition, as you are successful you will
eliminate organizational barriers such as fear and lack
of trust – issues that typically get in the way of
all of the organization's goals. A safety and
health change process can very effectively drive change
and bring an organization together due to the ability to
get buy-in from all levels. This stems from the fact that
most people place a high personal value on their own
safety. They view the change efforts as things that are
truly being done for them.
Continue Building "Buy-in" for
the needed changes by building an alliance or partnership
between management, your union (if one exists), and
employees. A compelling reason for the change must be
spelled out to everyone. People have to understand WHY
they are being asked to change what they normally do and
what it will look like when they are successful. This
needs to be done upfront. If people get wind that
something "is going down" and haven’t been
formally told anything, they will tend to naturally
resist and opt out.
Identify key personnel to champion the change. These
people must be visible and are the ones to articulate the
reasons for the changes. The reasons need to be compelling
and motivational. People frequently respond when they realize
how many of their co-workers or subordinates are being
injured and that they may be next. Management and supervisors
also respond when they see the money being lost due to
accidents and they realize that their actions toward safety
truly influence and define the employee safety culture.
Build Trust - Trusting is a critical
part of accepting change and management needs to know
that this is the bigger picture, outside of all the
details. Trust will occur as different levels within the
organization work together and begin to see success.
Conduct Self Assessments/Bench Marking -
In order to get where you want to go, it is essential to
know where you are starting from. You can use a variety
of self-audit mechanisms to compare your site processes
with other recognized models of excellence such as Star
VPP sites. Visiting other sites to gain first hand
information is also invaluable. You can use perception
surveys to measure the strengths and weaknesses of your
site safety culture. These surveys can give you data from
various viewpoints within the organization. For instance,
you can measure differences in employees' and managers'
perceptions on various issues. This is an excellent way
to determine whether alignment issues exist and, if so,
what they are. At this stage, it is important to look
at issues that surface as symptoms of larger system
failures. For example, ask what major system failed to
detect the unguarded machine, or why the system failed to
notice that incident investigations are not being
performed on time, or if workers are being blamed for the
failures. Your greatest level of success will come when
these larger system failures are recognized and
addressed.
Initial Training of
management-supervisory staff, union leadership (if
present), and safety and health committee members, and a
representative number of hourly employees. This may
include both safety and health training and any needed
management, team building, hazard recognition, or
communication training. This provides you with a core
group of people to draw upon as resources and also gets
key personnel on board with needed changes.
Establish a Steering Committee made up
of management, employees, union (if present), and safety
staff. This group's purpose is to facilitate, support,
and direct the change processes. This will provide
overall guidance and direction and avoid duplication of
efforts. To be effective, the group must have the
authority to get things done.
Develop Site Safety Vision, key
policies, goals, measures, and strategic and operational
plans. These policies provide guidance and serve as a
check-in that can be used to ask yourself if the decision
you’re about to make supports or detracts from your
intended safety and health improvement process.
Align the Organization by establishing a
shared vision of safety and health goals and objectives
versus production. Upper management must be willing to
support by providing resources (time) and holding
managers and supervisors accountable for doing the same.
The entire management and supervisory staff needs to set
the example and lead the change. It's more about
leadership than management.
Define Specific Roles and
responsibilities for safety and health at all levels of
the organization. Safety and health must be viewed as
everyone's responsibility. Clearly spell out how the
organization deals with competing pressures and
priorities, i.e., production versus safety and health.
Develop a System of Accountability for
all levels of the organization. Everyone must play by the
same rules and be held accountable for their areas of
responsibility. The sign of a strong culture is when the
individuals hold themselves accountable.
Develop Measures and an ongoing
measurement and feedback system. Drive the system with
upstream activity measures that encourage positive
change. Examples include: the number of hazards reported
or corrected, numbers of inspections, number of equipment
checks, Job Safety Analysis (JSA), prestart-up reviews
conducted, etc. While it is always nice to know what the
bottom line performance is, i.e., accident rates,
overemphasis on rates and using them to drive the system
typically only drives accident reporting under the table.
It is all too easy to manipulate accident rates, which
will only result in risk issues remaining unresolved and
a probability for future, more serious events to occur.
Develop Policies for Recognition,
rewards, incentives, and ceremonies. Reward employees for
doing the right things and encourage participation in the
upstream activities. Continually re-evaluate these
policies to ensure their effectiveness and to ensure that
they do not become entitlement programs.
Awareness Training and Kick-off for all
employees. It's not enough for a part of the organization
to be involved and know about the change effort. The
entire site needs to know and be involved in some manner.
A kick-off celebration can be used to announce
"It’s a new day," and seek buy-in for any
new procedures and programs.
Implement Process Changes via
involvement of management, union (if one is present) and
employees using a "Plan To Act" process such as
Total Quality Management (TQM).
Continually Measure performance, Communicate
Results and Celebrate Successes.
Publicizing results is very important to sustaining
efforts and keeping everyone motivated. Everyone needs to
be updated throughout the process. Progress reports
during normal shift meetings (allowing time for comments
back to the steering committee) opens communications, but
also allows for input. Everyone needs to have a voice,
otherwise, they will be reluctant to buy-in. A system can
be as simple as using current meetings, a bulletin board,
or a comment box.
On-going Support - Reinforcement,
feedback, reassessment, mid-course corrections, and
on-going training is vital to sustaining continuous
improvement
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