Leveraging Expertise to Help Organizations Improve Safety Outcomes
My career has had me working across the globe in Manufacturing from aluminum cans to airplanes, Papermills, Roll Mills, Protein Plants, Surface and Underground Mines, Granaries, Railroads (from Engineering to Intermodal), Chemical Plants and Refineries.
While the industries were drastically different, I was able to work with each one because they had a common desire.
They wanted to improve.
Improving or getting “better in safety” meant different things to different groups.
For some, it meant getting to top quartile safety performance, others wanted confidence they were controlling the exposures with a reasonable likelihood of causing a Life Altering injury.
For yet others, it was less about injury rates and more about evolving their culture, repairing damaged relationships, or finding new and unique ways to engage their employees. And yes, there were those clients, that needed to reduce the cost associated with injuries, as it was a major factor hindering their growth.
Crucial to success, is the ability for those being asked to support the change effort having the ability to articulate the purpose for the change and how their efforts support the overall organizational objective.
What makes the work satisfying is being able to help improve safety, where everyone is a winner. What makes the work enjoyable is the variation and understanding the different drivers for change. From each engagement, I strived to learn something new. While the workplace, the people and the improvement targets varied, the process for change was much the same.
Four Step Process To Safety Success
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Define the Objective
This may seem like an easy step, but it is not unusual that people struggle answering the question or there is a lack of alignment in the team. In some cases, leadership needs help understanding what is possible.
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Analyze the Situation
This step typically involves a variety of analytics, reviewing systems, and taking a measure of culture. The extent of analysis varies depending on the objective.
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Identify Strategic Actions
In my experience, fewer actions are better, but they must be actions that when implemented will deliver a sustainable change, or that will remove barriers to change and/or fill gaps.
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Commit, Measure, and Deliver
The first step in implementing change is gaining the commitment from the stakeholders to fulfill their role in the change process and agree to allocate the necessary resources. To assure success there must be a comprehensive project plan with milestones that demonstrate progress and key metrics.
This four-step process is not unique. What is unique is that GSC brings a depth of knowledge and understanding that is unmatched. GSC is not locked into a one size fits all approach, yet we leverage our depth of knowledge and experience to help organizations avoid time consuming and costly mistakes.