Our previous safety blog talked about accountability; setting high expectations and then following through. We considered that even when you have economic and work pressures pushing against maintaining a high standard, the cost of not holding people responsible can be an even steeper price to pay.  What are some steps to take to guarantee accountability?

• Incentive

Problem:  Warning! Rewarding people for maintaining a low injury rate can result in employee peer pressure to not report issues for fear they will lose the reward.

Instead, utilize positive

• Incentives that reward the action of following safety procedures and processes instead of the result.
• Recognition and rewards to employees for identifying, reporting, and eliminating hazards.
• Consider online incident reporting system for employees to notify management when an incident or close call occurs.
• Posted action list to show how issues are being fixed and recognize employee who related the problem.

Following these recommendations help everyone avoid mixed messages and to create a climate that encourages and values employees to take positive safety actions.

• Written Safety Policy
  • Establish, distribute, and implement written safety policies.
  • Written safety policies should demonstrate:
    • Expectations.
    • Roles.
    • Responsibilities for establishing and maintaining a positive jobsite safety climate.
  • Policies should be developed:
    • Team effort.
    • Employee input.
    • Signed by the owner.
  • Policies should be:
    • Distributed to employees.
    • Reviewed with all employees.
    • Included in the company’s safety manual.
    • Reinforced verbally every day.
• Incident/Accident Investigations
  • Prioritizing blame over determining the root cause can generate a climate of fear among employees which in turn often leads to:
    • Discomfort speaking up.
    • Under- or non-reporting of potential hazards, close calls, and injuries.
    • Weakening and undermining a strong safety climate.
  • Supervisors need training on how to properly conduct blame-free incident and close call investigations.
  • Discover the root cause of all incidents by examining the possible contributing factors:
    • Environmental.
    • Organizational.
    • Human.
  • A system should be set up to share findings throughout the company.
• Leadership accountability. 
• Safety leadership should be included as part of supervisor evaluations.
• A supervisor’s annual performance evaluation should emphasize his/her leadership skills with respect to safety. 
• Recognize leadership behaviors such as the supervisor’s ability to:
  • Empower employees to identify hazards.
  • Cease operations if necessary.
  • Report incidents.
  • Participate in blame-free incident investigations.
• Gather safety data by:
  • Asking employees directly about onsite safety leadership.
  • Observational methods.
  • Identification of strengths and weaknesses in the evaluation should be discussed with supervisors.
  • Development of improvement goals.
• Immigrant accountability
  • Ensure that immigrants understand company expectations.
    • Communicate in their language.
    • Understand cultural motivations.
    • Set high expectations.
  • Create a confidential survey to understand and address their concerns.
  • Develop a system to act from lessons learned.

Report on action progress.