Study Explains All The Crappy Drivers

A recent study by the Alberta Motor Association Foundation For Traffic Safety had me scratching my head and being a little more vigilant in my defensive driving:

• 89% of Alberta drivers on the road today couldn't pass the written Learner's test if they had to write it today.
• 82.3% of survey participants reported having more than 10 years experience

Umm, that's not good news. That means that 89% of your drivers, driving their own vehicles and likely some company vehicles couldn't pass the Learner's Permit Written Test.

How about over the next week or so, you ask each of your drivers on-staff to take the Class 7 Driver’s License Free Online Practice Test Questions. I jumped the gun a little on a few questions and didn't think them through and scored a 94%. What would happen if, for just a moment, one of your people jumped the gun and wasn't thinking clearly about what they were doing in the moment?

Let's make sure that basic safety is instilled. Don't ever assume that your people know the rules of the road just because they have a driver's license already. A lifetime of bad habits can make a bad driver forget the rules.

The Bully Is About To Be Bullied

So what do you think happens when a high-school bully enters the work world and has a bully for a boss? The bully learns how the business world works through the eyes of another bully. In fact, the bully becomes just like his boss - so much so that he becomes almost a mirror of his boss. So when it comes time for succession, guess who gets the nod? The guy just like the last guy.

The province of Ontario is set to pass a bill (Bill 168) making workplace harassment illegal. The new law will come into effect this month. It requires employers to develop and communicate workplace violence prevention policies, assess the risks of workplace violence, and take reasonable precautions to protect workers from domestic violence in the workplace. Ontario will be the third province to legislate against workplace violence and harassment, along with Quebec and Saskatchewan.

New research from Queen's University's School of Business indicates that workplace bullying can be more damaging than racial or gender harassment.

"While ethnic harassment and gender harassment can both be attributed to prejudice, general workplace harassment is a subtle form of mistreatment that masks underlying motives, and is not as easily attributed to bias," say report authors Jana Raver of Queen's School of Business and Lisa Nishii of Cornell University,

Caucasians reported higher levels of general workplace harassment than minorities, and women were not more likely than men to experience either gender harassment or general workplace harassment.

Raver and Nishii also found that general workplace harassment may be especially detrimental because unlike gender and ethnic harassment, it is not illegal in most of North America. A study released by Queen's University in 2008 also found workplace harassment to be more harmful than sexual harassment because of a lack of recourse for victims.

So, even if you're not in one of the three provinces affected by the new legislation, are you ahead of this or will you wait until the very last minute - until your legislated to do something about it? You can help your own Corporate Safety & Wellness Culture by being ahead of the legislation.

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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711
Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!

Safety Culture By Fear is a Waste of Time

You will never achieve a Culture of Safety by attempting to scare the crap out of your people. That means that pictures of dismembered bodies, videos of workers with missing limbs and even bringing in speakers who have had terrible accidents happen (mostly through carelessness) does not create a Culture of Safety.

If you want to create a Culture of Safety you have to change the varying opinions of the workers. Culture is nothing more than a collection of attitudes within an organization. If you want to really develop a Culture of Safety, then you have got to change the attitudes that are driving your organization right now. Shocking and scaring your people into a safety mindset never lasts or ever takes off for that matter.

No safety program has had success because your employees were once shown a picture of a guy losing his arm in a machine. No safety program has ever had success because your employees watched a video of someone in the midst of a reportable incident. No safety program ever succeeded because you hired an accident-victim-turned-motivational-speaker to teach your people, "don't do what I did."

No, if you want to instill a Culture of Safety, you need to get the majority of your people on-side and create a self-policing, peer-based safety culture that looks out for each other, makes sure that everyone is working safely and chastises and ridicules those who chose to operate outside of the safety program. You need to find a way to get your people to make those who don't follow the safety culture to feel like outsiders and to be ostracized.

"We operate with a safety mindset around here," your people need to say. "If you don't want to play the way we play, then we don't want you around here. We're going to get you fired. Either get in line or get a new job."

That's the Culture of Safety you want. If that's not the culture you have right now, then your safety program isn't working.

Zero is real on every job site. There are no excuses - unless your culture accepts excuses.
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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711

Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!

Stop Wellness Programs ...

... and instead, create a company-wide wellness culture.

Research shows a direct correlation between effective workplace health programs and return on investment as building a culture of health improvement can result in lower costs and improved performance according to Towers Perrin's 2009 Health Care Cost Survey.

Did you catch the last part of that first sentence? "Building a culture of health improvement can result in lower costs and improved performance."

You have to build a culture - not just a program. That means that your people have got to want to embrace health improvement in order to create a company-wide culture. Is one person, the Director of Health and Safety, going to be able to create that culture right across the entire company? No. Not likely. It's more than a one-person job but it is important and needs to move way up in the priority rankings.

In the same way that an organization develops a strategic plan to capture more and new customers, the organization should also be required to develop a strategy to capture the hearts and minds of its own people and move them toward a culture of health improvement - which is a culture of wellness. In other words, there needs to be a plan to involve all of your people in not just adhering to the rules of safety but in actually thinking health and safety. Since you have a plan to capture new revenues (customers), shouldn't you also have a plan to reduce your expenses (health-related costs and absenteeism)?

Once a Culture of Wellness takes root, here's what happens:

• absenteeism rates drop dramatically
• employee productivity and engagement spikes
• attrition and turnover numbers drop
• costs due to absenteeism drop drastically
• staff morale rises dramatically
• communication improves through all levels
• demand for Stress Management programs will drop
• people begin to love their work and spread the word about the company attracting new people.

Or, you could keep with the same program you have, continue to handle high absenteeism rates, watch your staff continue to turn over, pay the costs of constantly retraining (about 1.5 times the annual salary of the worker being replaced), deal with the petty arguments amongst staff and have to recruit like crazy to get more people to come work for you.

I don't know. It seems like a no-brainer to me. But then, that's just me. What about you? Are you ready to change your safety and wellness program into a full-blown corporate culture of wellness?
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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711

Get Tough: Cell-Phones And Snow Tires

Employees driving a company vehicle from Steels Industrial Products can be fired if they are caught using any kind of cellphone or texting device while driving -- period. Hooray. Steels president Jim Sidwell laid down the law to his 180 workers in British Columbia and Alberta a few weeks ago. Similar policies are in force at large companies such as Finning Canada, Husky Energy, Halliburton and ConocoPhilipps.

Studies show that drivers who talk on cellphones are six times more likely to be involved in dangerous collisions. And they are 23 times more likely to have a crash if they're texting and driving, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. People who chat on cellphones or text are 10 times more likely to run a stop sign.

It's a safety issue. And personally, I would like to see a way to enact legislation to company employees who freely chat or text on the cell phones while OFF the job too. Hey if they only do it while on the job, it's proof positive that those people do not possess a Safety Attitude. They just tolerate the rules at work. And they will cut corners in safety.

Oh, and speaking of Safety Attitude, let's make sure that if you really want to walk the safety-talk, let's make sure that there are winter tires on those company vehicles if they run where there is snow on the ground for long periods of time.

It's December and snow is falling. There is no comparison between driving on all-season tires and driving on winter tires. People though, whine about the additional expense. There is NO additional expense. Running winter tires for six months extends your all-season tires by six months every season. So a set of tires that may have lasted three years should last six by rotating all-seasons and winter tires.

Sorry but if you're in Safety and you don't have winter tires on your company vehicle AND your personal vehicle, then you're a hypocrite and as a safety supervisor, you don't walk your talk. Safety is an Attitude. Safety is more than just wearing your PPE on the job. Safety is about protecting yourself, your family and the general public off the job too.

I would encourage organizations to find a way to get personal vehicles outfitted with winter tires in snow-belt areas. I'm not saying that companies should pay for winter tires for their employees but make a deal at a tire shop and offer your people an hour off to get them changed over. If you preach safety, then make off-the-job-safety a part of your safety culture.

If you've never thought that way, then you aren't going to convince others of a safety attitude - and you could use my help to shift your culture to a Safety Culture.
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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711

When Workers Hate Their Bosses

When workers hate their bosses, you can't always openly tell. Some have disliked their bosses from Day 1. Others learn to increasingly disrespect their bosses and begin to shut down over time - eventually arriving to that point where they actually, in their minds, resign from the job. They end up doing just enough to not get fired.

Now before you go thinking that as long as they continue to do their jobs all is OK, let me clue you in. The levels of employee motivation have tangible ramifications for your organization:

• Rates of jobsite theft will rise.
• Quality of work will drop creating unsafe conditions.
• Safety incident numbers rise.
• Turnover and absenteeism both increase.
• Profitability of the department drops.

If you've got any of these issues, then you've got a group of workers who have become disillusioned with their immediate boss. People who shut down like this don't have it in for the company (in most instances), they have it in for their immediate manager. It's not the corporate culture that irritates people over time, it's usually an immediate supervisor. Once an employee loses respect for their boss, good luck getting them motivated and engaged again. If they're not engaged and motivated, they are cutting corners - safety corners.

Stop buying the excuses of department managers who always have an excuse for why theft is up, safety incidents are up, reports are late, turnover is high or why so many people seem to be sick. They're sick alright - sick of their boss.

Act quickly when you see the signs.
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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711

Safety Culture Requires A Strong Attitude First

Colin was just 19 when he got the call to join the paving crew for the summer.  He had worked fast-food restaurants and warehouse work in past but he really wanted to be outside. The job promised good money, long hours and plenty of time in the sun.

Living in a hotel was a new experience for him. Being on the road, away from friends and family for weeks at a time and working 14 hours a day left no time for social activities so he was banking his money quickly. In his mind, he had the world by the tail and when the summer was over, he would have enough money to buy himself the car he'd always wanted.

The job only lasted three weeks before Safety Inspectors shut down the crew for failing to meet minimum training and safety standards. The crew chief was a family friend of Colin's whose lack of safety attitude caused Colin to be back working the fast-food restaurants and his dream of his new car gone with the work.

Safety Cowboys, old-school workers who just refuse to accept the new procedures, undermine your safety program, the livelihood of honest workers who just want to work and, in fact, work directly in opposition to your ability to establish a strong, cohesive culture of safety in your organizations. The last thing your organization needs happen is for your cowboys to influencing your green hands.

Safety needs to become an ingrained attitude in each and every worker. Without an attitude of safety, you, as a Safety Supervisor, will never create a "culture" of safety. You can't build a culture of safety with people who don't hold an attitude of of safety. You need a solid foundation before you can lay asphalt. The same is true about a culture of safety: you need a strong safety attitude first.
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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711