E. Scott Geller, Ph.D., Alumni Distinguished Professor, Virginia Tech, and senior partner, Safety Performance Solutions, gave a presentation at ASSE’s Safety 2014 conference in Orlando this past June emphasizing the need for the safety profession to embrace these paradigm shifts to achieve an injury-free culture:
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Whether you work in Aviation, Mining or the Zoo Industry, the EHS Department is often caught in the middle between the C-Suite and everybody else in the company.
OSHA boss Dr. David Michaels issued a memorandum to reiterate OSHA's policy that employee training required by OSHA standards must be presented in a manner that employees can understand, and to provide enforcement guidance to the area and regional offices relative to the agency's training standards.
Since childhood, we have all been raised by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Many would cite this ethical code as one of their aspirations by which to live, both personally and professionally.
How often do you thank the members of your safety team? Whether they are safety professionals or volunteers on your safety team or even people who have been appointed based upon their position in your organization, they are a special group of people. As a safety speaker, I always end any presentation to safety teams or leaders with a thank you on behalf of all the people they protect.
Former U.S. president Harry Truman had a rule: any letters written in anger had to sit on his desk 24 hours before they could be mailed. If at the end of the “cooling off” period, he still felt the same sentiments, he would send the letter. By the end of his life, the letters that Truman never mailed filled a large desk drawer.
Have you ever given thought to how powerful the written word is? Safety speakers and safety professionals are primarily communicators. Understanding the tools we use to communicate is critical to our success. In our field, you often hear phrases such as, “walking your talk,” “being a safety example” and the ever popular, “actions speak louder than words.” I would suggest words are, in fact, actions.
The regulation-oriented data tells us a part of the story with respect to training, incident records, safety meetings, work orders, policies/procedures and the like. Observations add a bit more insight to what our people are actually doing when they are occasionally being watched/evaluated by others.
Employees naturally want to feel “psychologically safe” when they express emotions, air complaints, or make suggestions. You know your workplace is psychologically safe when employees take interpersonal risks when communicating with team members and up the chain of command.
