Necessary Part of Doing Business?

The recent West Virginia coal mine disaster has some serious implications - even more far-reaching than the deaths of the miners. The mine at Montcoal, West Virginia, is owned by Massey Energy. As reported recently by the New York Times, Massey Energy is one of the leading violators of safety procedures in the coal industry.

In fact, Massey CEO, Don Blankenship, was recently quoted as saying, "Violations are unfortunately a normal part of the mining process."

Did you get that? Safety violations are a normal part of mining? It is unbelievable that a CEO holds so little value in his people that he doesn't care that his operation will break safety rules? People die as a result - and yet he is still CEO and there seem to be no consequences.

According to Blankenship's words, if he has to risk lives to get the job done, he will choose chunks of rock over human life.

Is your safety program really based on protecting your people or are you just giving an illusion of safety?

Safety Attitude starts at the top and makes no room for "necessary" violations.

But it raises this question: how would you like to be the Supervisor of Safety working under this guy?


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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!

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

Scary Survey Numbers Impact Safety

Do you think that just because your people are still employed in a down economy, that they’re adhering to safety procedures? Don’t bet your life on it. In fact, in desperate times, employees are resorting to desperate measures and are doing desperate things to hang onto their jobs.

According to a recent survey by Adecco, one of the world’s leaders in human resource solutions, an incredible 28 percent of respondents would do something dishonest in order to keep their jobs. These behaviors include blaming coworkers for mistakes, setting up situations for co-workers to fail or even blackmailing colleagues. Gen Y’s numbers are even scarier with 41 percent saying they would do something dishonest.

In the same survey 20 percent of currently employed individuals say current economic conditions have a negative affect upon their mental health.

Finally, 82 percent of respondents said their employers are not paying more attention to performance even as layoffs reduce payrolls to essential employees.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If you think that simply maintaining your current OH&S program is going to get you to Zero as the world changes – think again. As these times in our economy take their toll on your people, they are willing to sabotage other workers to save their own jobs. IS your OH&S program ready to address this? Seriously?

Twenty percent of your people are feeling that you’re not paying enough attention to their mental health on the job. What are you doing to address this? Someone with mental health problems on the job can be a walking hazard.

The world is changing. The worker on the job is changing. The numbers of Gen Y’s on the job are changing how you handle your safety program. But are you trying to manage the potential fallout using last year’s OH&S model in this year’s economic reality?

Look, if you’re not addressing Safety Attitude on the job, you’re missing a potentially fatal hazard. Workers who are prepared to blame co-workers to simply keep their own jobs are loose-cannons on the job site. You don’t have enough supervisors to watch everyone all of the time. You need to do something different.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. The numbers speak for themselves. You do the math. If you don’t address these new realities now, your safety numbers are going to take a nosedive and your LTI’s are going to cost you a lot of money.

Getting To Zero Means Getting Tough

Zero is a real possibility in safety. In fact, many companies are achieving zero right now. If others can do it, why can’t you?

The truth is that in order to achieve zero, companies, supervisors and VP’s of Safety are going to have to become vigilant and make the tough decisions. It’s not going to be easy to do it until you figure out where the hazards and job site issues come from in the first place.

Work sites are safe. It’s people who screw them up. Have a look at the following list and tell me it’s not people who screw things up:

• Park an unsecured piece of equipment where it shouldn’t be.
• Leave an extension cord running across the ground with no markings.
• A quick trip up the ladder to fetch something – no need to tie-off.
• No need for a seat belt since I’m still in the yard and not on the road yet.
• No need for a truck walk-around – I did it fifteen minutes ago.
• Maybe I should have adjusted the side mirror when I was stopped – oh well.

You getting my drift here? If it weren’t for people, everything would be exactly where it’s supposed to be. Of course, if it weren’t for people, nothing would ever get done. So there’s the conundrum.

It’s your people who give you the safety record you have. Your results on the job are the direct result of the line you take with those who do the job. The more vigilant you become in instilling a Safety Attitude, the more your results will improve.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What’s the difference between a driver who’s been drinking and a driver who’s exhausted? Sit in the passenger seat and you’ll figure out the answer – not much. So why do you allow your people to come to work after being out all night? What about letting them work hung-over? What about someone popping cold pills that make them drowsy? What about a parent who spent most of the night at the hospital with a sick child?

Are these people alert and ready for whatever happens or are they barely conscious? Could they be considered a hazard on the job? Fatigue and impairment cause accidents both on and off the job.

Do you ever wonder why Cops park a block away from the bar at eight o’clock in the morning? It’s to catch the driver retrieving his car who, although he seems coherent, is still over the limit to drive. And you’re going to let him work?

There are no more reasons and excuses for not achieving zero. If your crew knows that they are going to lose a day’s pay for showing up hung-over, sleep-deprived, stuffed full of cold medications or trying to hide the fact that they’re still drunk, then my guess is that they wouldn’t show up that way at all. People rise to level of expectation. But if you don’t impose any consequences for being impaired, then your safety record will just have to suffer the consequences alone.

Safety Supervisors Have The Toughest Job

The Safety Supervisor has the toughest job. The Safety Supervisor is responsible for upholding the safety procedures at every moment of every day. And the job can be thankless.

Not only is the Safety Supervisor in a leadership position, but he or she is being watched like a hawk – by the people whose responsibility it is for the Safety Supervisor to watch over. The Safety Supervisor is the ultimate example of leading by example because people are watching. And if the Safety Supervisor does it differently than how the manual reads, he or she has set a new rule and procedure on the job.

For example:

• If a Safety Supervisor exceeds the speed limit by just one mile per hour - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor talks on the cell phone while driving and doesn’t pull over - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor rolls through a stop sign and continues driving - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor steps over a hazard on a job site and doesn’t address it - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor forgets his or her safety glasses in the truck and enters the job site anyway - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor overlooks just one procedure - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor is not courteous in traffic - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor sees a worker without full PPE and turns the other way - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor’s paperwork isn’t meticulous - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor is hung over at work - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor overlooks just one worker’s safety (especially the guy that the Safety Supervisor doesn’t much care for personally) – new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor doesn’t pull his entire crew out of an unsafe job site - new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor doesn’t address a renegade worker’s challenge and remove him from the job site immediately – new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor doesn’t stand up to the job site bully – new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor doesn’t fire a worker who purposely created a hazard on the job site – new rule.
• If a Safety Supervisor has a bad day and takes it out on the crew – new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor doesn’t foster an Attitude of “watch each others’ backs” on the job site – new rule.
• If the Safety Supervisor leaves a job site before all safety concerns have been addressed – new rule and a new Safety Supervisor I would hope.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The job of the Safety Supervisor is not easy. In fact, out of all of the jobs in your organization, I would hazard a guess (pardon the pun there) that the job of the Safety Supervisor is the toughest, most thankless and most difficult of all of the jobs.

Being a company policeman is not easy. People don’t like to have their work inspected and worse yet; don’t like to be told that it’s not good enough. Workers don’t like to be told to put on their gloves – it makes some feel like they’re being treated like little kids.

But it can also be incredibly rewarding. Getting a crew to buy into a Safety Attitude and achieving “zero” as a result has got to be one of the best feelings in the world. But the job is still tough. Because while the full crew gets to share in the celebration of “zero,” anything less than “zero” the Safety Supervisor faces alone.

It’s a tough gig and it requires a lot of mental toughness. But then a Safety Attitude is important and not everyone has what it takes to be a Safety Supervisor.

Lessons From The Foreman

Len is a foreman for a construction crew in the bustling Oil Sands region of Northern Alberta. He is a little rough around the edges, uses some fairly colourful language and is a little on the loud side. My guess that his personality is the result of working for many years with mostly men in a noisy environment. You know how guys talk when there are few women around? Len is definitely one of the boys.

In our conversation at the airport, as we both awaited flights, we spoke of many things. Two things in particular got my attention: something his father taught him as well as how he has found a way to reduce incidents and accidents on the job.

"My Dad always told me to make sure you have a lot of paper in your wallet," said Len referring to having several trades tickets and certifications. "Dad said that once you get those papers, ain't nobody able to take that stuff away from you. You always have that."

"The more you know, the more you learn, the easier life gets," I added.

"They can't suck the learning out of your head," Len smiled.

It's a simple self-development philosophy really: the more you know, the more you've been certified, the more paper you carry, the more you will be paid. Why? Because you're more valuable.

As Len and I sat at the airport, we also talked about safety in the workplace.

"I've got a crew of guys who work 'twenty-on.' They usually work tens or twelves and the first three days back from days-off are tough," he said. "The guys are still off-work mentally. I've got to watch over them a little more at that time."

"But the worst," he said leaning in toward me, "is the three days just before they head home. When I see guys losing it - yelling at other guys, I know they're not thinking about the job. They're tired and their brains have already gone home even if their bodies are still at work. That's the most dangerous time. When they get like that, I make sure that we have a few extra toolbox meetings. Keep them focused. Keep them present and we all get to go home, safely."

Are you losing it at work for no reason? If you are or someone you work with is, then they're not focused. They're not mentally present and something could happen that could affect others.

Safety Attitude Adjustment: How often are you just letting disruptive behaviour slide? You don't have to be in management to take responsibility on the job. Check in with co-workers who seem a little edgy or unfocused. Help figure out what's going on in their world. If you don't, they could say or do something that could cause the loss of a good customer, a good working relationship or even a life. It's up to you to make sure that the work you do everyday doesn't get undermined by someone who isn't present and focused. It's your workplace too. Step up.