Safety Excellence in 4 Key Components

“Organizations that have basic safety programs in place usually take one of two paths: either they turn their attention away from safety to other priorities, thinking their safety performance is adequate, or they turn their attention totrue safety excellence.” – Terry L. Mathis, Founder and CEO, ProAct Safety

Everyone knows the importance of safety in the work place, especially those who work in high risk conditions with potentially dangerous equipment. Terry L. Mathis has broken down the key to accident prevention in 4 simple components: Strategy, Assessment, Coaching, and Engagement.

One of the key focus points in developing a proper safety strategy is that every person involved, whether it is leader or worker, must have the same end goals. Every aspect of an accident prevention plan must be strategically decided and enforced at all levels, and plans must be cohesive and free of conflicting messages. In order for a strategy to achieve efficacy the communication and motivation of the strategy must match the management style that is already in place. Consistency is a must and compliance must be the minimum standard of the company. With everyone having the same end goal of a safer work environment, accident prevention becomes the outcome, not the target.

The fault of many companies in creating an accident prevention plan is that they assess the current plan and then create a new strategy. There is an issue with this in that many times the post-assessment strategy tends to just "fill the gaps" in the old plan and doesn’t incorporate every aspect of a good safety strategy. Rather than filling in gaps, create alignment between old and new. Another key aspect to a productive assessment is that there must be trust in management from the worker’s standpoint in order not to fear the consequences of pointing out issues. In assessing a safety plan, workers may think that their safety training is adequate, but actually testing their knowledge may prove otherwise. In other words, workers don’t know what they don’t know so assessing every aspect is crucial.

“Excellence is not simply the result of great leadership; it is the result of leading great people.” At every level of leadership, coaching must be implemented and reinforced in order to ensure the safety plan is communicated and followed. The importance of coaching should be discussed in every leadership meeting and methods should be shared amongst leaders at every level in order to develop the most effective practices. In order to be the best, every leader’s goal should be continuous improvement in reports, and each report should be the standard by which their own performance is judged.

Engagement is key to almost anything that involves a group of people. When told a plan that is already set in stone, people tend to not remember every aspect of that plan because it isn’t engaging in any manner. Workers need to be involved in the strategic development of an accident prevention plan. Although it may take more time due to needing multiple inputs, allowing workers to be part of the design develops a sense of ownership and increases the likelihood that they will see the importance of the strategy.

Some, if not all of these components can become part of the basic safety efforts. If these components are already implemented, use them and build from them. Although some of these components may already be implemented, the best groups in terms of safety tend to use all four of them and aim to make them work together. “Excellence is a process that grows from sincere intent and effort and from having all the core components in place to enable success.”

Mathis, Terry L. “The Four Core Components of Safety Excellence”. EHS Today. Penton. 7 August 2015. Web. 12 August 2015. 

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