Last week, I listed four steps for building the foundation of a company-wide safety attitude. To quickly summarize, they were:

(1) Include safety with quality, delivery and productivity;
(2) Include safety in job descriptions;
(3) Establish safety goals; and
(4) Include a commitment to safety in the corporate mission statement.

Unfortunately, building the foundation is just the beginning. Getting everyone to follow upper management's directive is the next step and this challenge falls to you. Let's look at what you can do to build a company-wide safety attitude.

Plant the Seed

Start at the very beginning. As soon as a new employee walks in the door and before they can even set foot in the plant, give them a thorough safety orientation. This is the best and earliest opportunity to plant the seed of the "safety attitude." A safety orientation establishes the importance of safety to the company by laying it out as a responsibility that goes along with being a good employee.

Share the Responsibilities

Good safety managers utilize their best resources, including:

1. Managers & Supervisors. Managers and supervisors work with the employees on the front line every day and therefore can have the most consistent impact by:

2. Workers. Once you have the buy-in and support from managers and supervisors, the workers on the floor need to be involved. Create a plant-wide safety committee program with representatives from all areas and shifts in the facility, so that everyone has a voice in safety issues.

3. Safety Committee. How many safety committees just meet, talk and complain? How many more propose ideas, solutions, changes and actions, but have no authority or commitment to follow through and implement any of their proposals? The ineffectiveness of a committee will quickly undermine your progress. And it's much more difficult to win back the support and confidence lost along the way. A good safety committee must be consistent and active and it must produce visible results. Once you have an effective, working safety committee with good representation and support at all levels of management and on the shop floor, then you have a good foundation to support your safety program and a medium for continuous two-way communication.

Lead by Example

Your safety attitude must be contagious. You must be seen not as the enemy trying to impede the process, but as someone dedicated to a safer work environment, fighting for everyone's safety every day.

Your workers need to see and feel the company's commitment to providing a safe and healthy work environment. Seeing improvements or changes made in the name of safety demonstrates management's dedication and goes a long way to getting everyone involved.

Discipline is also an important part of the program. View the individuals in your workplace as a safety team with your role being to constantly recruit players. Those who blatantly undermine the team by continuously ignoring safety and putting others at risk don't belong on the team or in the company. Safety rules must be consistently and firmly enforced to let everyone know that following established safety policies is just as important as quality, delivery and productivity.

Never Give Up

Having the support and resources of everyone makes a world of difference when you can't be everywhere, 24/7. You need to allocate time and energy to other important EHS-related responsibilities, such as training, operating permits, licenses, inspections, as well as OSHA, EPA and local regulatory requirements. Hey, someone has to drive the bus and that's you.

You need to keep everyone thinking and acting safely every day. That requires effort. Get out there, let them see you, be accessible, encourage suggestions and show your commitment by implementing changes and improvements that make for a safer work environment.

Conclusion

The safety attitude is the all important "intangible" that every team or program must have to be successful. You can't touch it, but you can feel it. You can also feel it when it's missing. The absence of a safety attitude is what we fight against every day to avoid the most hated word in the safety manager's vocabulary: "accident."

One last nugget of advice: Workplace safety is a vast, sometimes overwhelming subject area. You can't know everything. So make the effort to learn something every day and remember to always share the credit for successes.

SAFETY ATTITUDES
The Employee's Role in Workplace Safety

By Lyonel Doherty

Jim Montanaro's right about the importance of a safety attitude. Here's an article to share with your workers on how they can assess their own safety attitudes.

You consider yourself a safe worker because you generally follow the rules, wear the required PPE and take the necessary training. And you rely on your employer to keep you safe on the job. So why would an accident happen to you? Well, there's one thing your employer can't do - control your actions and your attitude.

Employers bear a huge responsibility to protect their workers from injury. The regulations they must abide by are very demanding, to say the least. But employees must also take charge of their own safety. Remember, you have the most to gain... and the most to lose.

A Good Safety Attitude

Having a good safety attitude isn't just about following procedure. It's staying alert to possible hazards and taking the extra time to use PPE. It also means that you're willing to listen to suggestions that might protect you. To have a good safety attitude, you need.

Focus: A good safety attitude means you focus on the task, you concentrate on the job. If you have other things on your mind, you may be distracted. And if you're bored, an accidental slip is easy.

Strength: No, this doesn't mean muscle strength; it's the strength to do the right thing, even when you are under pressure to take shortcuts. A good safety attitude means you have the strength to stick with the procedures.

Time: A good safety attitude means taking the time to do things correctly. Is saving a few minutes worth a lifelong injury? If you add up the life costs due to injuries, it's obvious that it's cheaper to do the job the right way the first time.

Responsibility: If you care about yourself and your co-workers, you will take responsibility even when a task "isn't my job." A good safety attitude means thinking of yourself as part of the team.

Behavioral Warning Signs:

These behaviors indicate that you're not taking responsibility for your own safety.

8 Steps to Safety Responsibility

Here are 8 ways you can take responsibility for your own safety:

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