Today’s topic is a little bit of a pet peeve of mine. People don’t really understand what building a safety culture is all about.
One of the things that I have heard, more times than I can count is, “Brye, I can’t work on our safety culture right now. Our injury rate is just way too high and I have to focus on that.” OR “We have construction going on at our facility and I have to focus on that.” OR “We have a change of process going on in our operation so we’ll do with culture once that’s done.”
Today I’m calling B.S. on all of it.
Safety culture is how we do business. It’s how we make our business decisions. Culture refers to the attitudes, values, beliefs and the goals that are driving the behaviors in your workplace. You want all of those to have a basis in keeping people safe. And making sure that the injury and damage risk is always considered in relation to those behaviors.
When people say to me that they can’t work on culture, I have to ask – what is your current culture? What does your management team believe about safety and safe work practices right now?
That is your current culture.
Here’s the fact: what you are currently doing is what’s getting you to where you currently are – it won’t get it to where you are going. Listen in to our discussion on this topic and learn what you can do today to work on the safety culture in your facility.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN
What did you think about this week’s episode? I’d love to know. Leave a comment below to continue the conversation.
Highlights From This Episode:
- Safety culture is the attitudes, values, beliefs and goals that drive the behaviors in your workplace
- When you focus on culture you’ll get to your goal quicker
- When someone says they have to put off working on culture, they are really saying that they are okay with where they are now, don’t want to change, or don’t see the benefit.
Links Mentioned:
- Get on the list and get a FREE idea book: 5 Surprising Ways to Make Employees Crazy for Safety at http://www.thesafetygeek.com/5ways
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Hi, I’m Brye (rhymes with sky)! I am a self-proclaimed safety geek with two decades of general industry safety experience. Specializing in bringing safety programs to a world-class level and building a safety culture, I have trained and coached many safety managers, just like you, on how to effectively manage workplace safety in the real world. I would love to help you too.
