Impacting organizational culture is a long-term, never-ending endeavor. Many companies struggle with maintaining and sustaining cultural initiatives because their impact may not be felt for several years. Culture, as an organizational construct, is a subjective factor not directly measurable by any instrument, survey or metric. Yet, everyone is impacted by culture and can describe when it turns bad.

Warehouse hazards create more accidents because of the massive quantities of products of all different sizes, shapes and weights stored on shelves, floors and anyplace else someone can find a place to put a box, pallet or carton.

Have you ever been in “The Zone”? “The Zone” is described as a tunnel-vision experience and an extreme focus. “The Zone” is reported by athletes, soldiers, and researchers.

In his mega-popular book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell centers his thesis on the claim that experts come to the point where “they just know.” They develop intuition, based on diligent practice. So experts get the answer without having to go through a step-by-step process of analysis.

What I call a “True North Safety Culture” is the point at which an organization aligns to a value and goal of eliminating risk(s)/injuries within an organization, and also aligns mission/vision statements to this goal.

Behavior-based coaching is essential for any mission to keep people safe. It’s human nature to get distracted or complacent on the job, and to deviate from performing the prescribed safe operating procedure (SOP).

Most organizational leaders are relatively clear about what they desire from their safety staff, but shouldn’t these same leaders ask what’s needed of them to achieve ongoing EHS success?

We know that most of us don’t like to be bounded by a set of rules around our actions and our behaviors; however, there is no sustainable safety culture if there is no operational discipline.

Standard teaching techniques apply to all types of learning. But safety training exists on a level of its own given the life and death stakes involved. While safety professionals need to find teaching ideas that work, many find themselves falling back on the same tired slide presentations.

Safety training has been around forever. There are also safety orientations, safety coaching, safety mentoring, safety education, safety feedback. These staples of safety programs have one thing in common: showing employees how to recognize risks, know the rules, and avoid injury or illness.