Safety Advisor – Type A: The Type A Advisor is someone who is more focussed on risk and cultural elements of safety, they generally take concerted risks to try to find the right balance. For example they generally create a management system which is less onerous on employees to allow them flexibility to make decisions on safety / risk which in turn feed on a positive safety culture because employees are less weighed down by it. We all know that we take more care of something we own so in general a type A Safety Advisor spends a lot of time trying to encourage employees to own safety and make it more imbedded in the way they carry out their day to day work. Type A will generally have a structured management system, however they are also very conscious that safety needs flexibility and room to move or be altered. In short their management system is more ‘live’ than Type B. Their main focus will be integrating safety into work procedures and limiting the need for death by bureaucracy and stringent policing.

Safety Advisor – Type B: Pretty much the opposite!! The Type B Advisor is more regimented and structured. They like to create a system that introduces a number of steps employees need to comply with to get a job done safely. Generally a Type B’s Safety Management System is stagnant to a point, in that they do not allow room for movement or change which takes the ownership of safety off employees. Type B is also interested in Safety Culture (as all Safety Advisors should be) however their approach is somewhat different to Type A making culture more of an organised event as opposed to feeding it organically, if that makes sense!!

If I am not making my point clear and you are more of an examples person (I know I am) well here it is. Let’s take Stop Work Authority (SWA), Type A would have this system a paperless one focussing more on how employees should perform a SWA making it a more casual approach. How should you approach someone, who to deal with it, how to accept intervention / SWA etc? Type B on the other hand would also communicate SWA but it would be a ‘system’ with more structure. Generally they would have the ‘form’ (one of ??? many) which needs to be filled out, submitted to a supervisor, reviewed, signed off and permission granted before work would resume etc.

Let me ask you this, if you were an employee and you needed to intervene in an unsafe condition which system would encourage you to utilise SWA? If we turned the tables and asked, if you were the employER who is overall responsible for Safety, which system would you go for??? And so the divide begins…. Type A the employee pleaser and Type B the employer pleaser… Are we loosing balance?

I would be interested to know if any other Safety Professionals share my views. Do you find that Safety Advisors are on paths which are slowly diverging? Personally I am more of a Type A Safety Advisor on a quest to find that balance of what is practical and also what feeds a positive safety culture and it’s a very fine balance!!

Note: The content of this blog is my view only. Of course not every safety advisor can be categorised into two types so my writing is general. I am also trying to cater for all industries so again dependent on the industry type this may push you into a certain way of managing safety. I guess what I am trying to say is this blog is general.

As usual looking forward to your discussions and how you see the role of a safety advisor… Orla

I would like to view some of my concerns when it comes to the structure of today’s typical management system. I’ll start with an example – ISO 9001 Certification. No offense to ISO but if a company follows ISO requirements and they do what they say they do this = certification and ‘bang’ the quality of their products are seen to be superior!!!!!! A company’s products may be improved but we are missing one vital element…. The management system may fit ISO requirements but does it fit the requirements of the worker? I think with my example (ISO certification) we oversee the quality of the system itself which inadvertently affects the quality of our products to a greater degree!!!!! Let me explain..

When a business designs a management system they look at their main objectives, risks, areas which need to be managed and areas in which they need to be legally compliant,
and for this blogs simplicity sake they form a set of procedures around these areas to control them. Sounds simple? So WHY is your typical system more like the London underground, full of complex channels, working so far from ‘seamless’ it’s become a very rocky disjointed road??…. Enough with my similes, now down to my viewpoint..

We implement these procedures by saying – Here is a set of guidelines you need to follow to carry out your work task, if something goes wrong we point to that paragraph amongst 150 pages of prescriptive text which clearly stated ‘you must do this’ and say ‘well, why didn’t you do it like we told you to???? A typical incident investigation points the finger at human error and yes although 90% of incident may be due to human error I think companies need to take a long hard look at how they manage their business which inadvertently effects employee performance, leading to human error!!!!!!

In my past experience, companies who have a death by bureaucracy type systems (we know we have all come across them!), experience a knock on negative effect which feeds
our company’s culture. Workers are employed to do a job, when they are pinned down by a ‘bureaucratic system’ that doesn’t fit, this affects their performance and moral at work which as I mentioned early, inadvertently affects the quality of their output / performance.

Working with such systems forces employees to comply, and again back to the robot syndrome employees feel like components of a machine where they are not trusted enough
to make decisions, how would this affect your moral? Don’t get me wrong we need a system in place and we need to protect our employees but there is a line between a functional and dysfunctional management system, that line is quite broad so why can’t we seem to find it?

We are living in a world that is so technologically advanced but yet we cannot design a simple yet smart system tailored to the employee’s needs. We need to invest in our systems
structure to optimise human performance however to most companies this is seen as a gamble so they stay stagnant and nurture the ‘patch work effect’*. Were not to good at recognising the softer components of a system!

If we give employees more free rein (without compromising on safety of course) imagine what we would achieve. When an employee feels disengaged and dragged down by a
management system (or management!) this affects moral, which effects their respect for a company, which makes employees hold back (why should I perform to my peak, this company does not deserve it because its holding me back!!) and it’s a vicious cycle from there on in – the joys of psychology! This vicious cycle feeds down to the company’s products (output) and also feeds down to the Clients and of course their reputation, I could go on… But it does not have to be that way….

I am going to summarise with some food for thought (and of course discussion)…..

• Humans are the main components of a business management system NOT     THE PAPERWORK
• Humans make a business management system function, were as a piece of technological equipment (also a system in its own right) is made up of more reliable parts!!! Again we need to pay more  attention on the parts of our system which is the humans to optimise performance!!!
• We need to find a balance in our management systems to allow employees to perform without been held back, an integrated management systems that is streamlined and tailored to our companies most important asset – the human (not the robot) employee
• Employee need to focus on their work, not the flaws of a system – Employee need to be part of constructing a system because whether we like it or not to an extent they know what works best
• We need to take a risk and trust the human components of our system to introduce change which will directly promote a positive work culture
• Design a management system around our employees FIRST before we look at how we can tie in ISO requirements and legislative requirements – in other words be SMART

Before (if!) you comment please bear in mind this blog is written in a broad sense. I did not want to bore the reader which 15 pages so focus more on the point being made as oppose to my examples. Here’s hoping I got my point across the line

* Patch Work Effect – Is a term I started to use in my work practices, it relates to a flaw or a gap in our management system which we create a patch for to ensure its covered. But
we don’t really think about the bigger picture.

Happy Reading

Orla

Taking all of the comments into consideration they are generally focussing on one major area ‘the practical safety advisor’……… Which leads me to believe we need to take a good look at how we (safety advisors) manage and approach safety.  I know I will take a lot of the information I received on board so I have created a summary to share with you.

It would probably be more beneficial to read my article on ‘Its Practically Safe’ to get the best value from the below comments. But if you are the type of person who puts a flat pack together without reading the instructions (which I am guilty of) then please read on…

The Practical Safety Advisor  

1. A safety advisor is not a dictator.

 Details: The safety advisor who is a dictator (we have all met them at some point in our professional careers) is ‘counterproductive and incredibly frustrating’. Mr Rao shared his approach to safety which makes a lot of common sense! He detailed ‘HSE is as much about how you present the information as it is about the information you are presenting, you are taking a calculated risk in allowing the individual to join the dots themselves and make the right decisions regarding HSE and yes there is certainly some exposure but I have always believed that it is a risk worth taking’. If we don’t take this risk we are treating employees as an automated piece of equipment and although this may legally safeguard the company against claims it’s not a productive or efficient way to work, which consequently channels thought towards a negative safety culture.

2. Having a safety advisor who is not only a people’s person with leadership skills but someone who understands the work practices and procedures.

Details: I know it is not always possible to have a safety advisor who’s technically competent in all work practices but this is where integration of employees into our work management systems is critically important. Employees need to have a say (and be heard!) in how safety controls and procedures directly affect their work practices so a ‘practical’ yet ‘safe’ balance is met.

3. Seek feedback and involvement from employees.

Details: Mr Robb quoted ‘A man with a question is a danger to complacency’. This quote is very accurate, if employees are not happy or question procedures put in place, this breeds complacency and employees may be reluctant to comply with safety. It is very hard to fully comply with something you do not agree with or believe in! I understand that employees also have a responsibility to themselves, their families and their colleagues for all of these are affected by irresponsible behaviour of the employee. This is the culture that needs to be nurtured within the company and not one reliant on enforcement.

4. Include an element of common sense (A sensitive comment to make but please read  on!!!).

Details: As Mr Masterman commented, ‘there will always be rules and regulations for employees to follow and for us to enforce however you can do it in a way that’s not telling workers what to do but rather coaching their sub-conscious to think a different way’.  I think this is a major factor which is not given enough attention in the training of our safety advisors. A safety advisor needs to have the ability to adapt and understand the workforce culture and their needs.  Mr Donaghue has hit the nail on the head with his comment, ‘encouragement is paramount to achieving goals, don’t be negative to a person’s question or suggestion, encourage and develop their line of thinking and thoughts so that they fully comprehend the end result of what they believe is a common sense attitude towards safety’. This point does not mean we are using common sense as a control measure but more so as an implementation tool that safety advisors need to be proficient in. If we do not take this approach a lot of employees will not only feel like they are being treated like a robot but it can also be translated as patronising!

5. A Safety Culture needs to be shaped through our management systems in order for it to be fully integrated.

Details: The Systems Man (aka Mr Mitchell) made a very valuable comment on the shaping and fine tuning of our safety culture within a business. He said ‘behaviour needs to be shaped early through training, demonstrated through leadership and supervised, monitored and reinforced through positive and negative incentives. An effective system needs to have an important element for understanding and sharing risk, everything from methods focused risk analysis and control effectiveness, to awareness of the role and self in risk taking behaviour as an aspect of common sense’.

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In saying all of the above, we are faced with one problem that Mr Blake raised, in general ‘We are dealing with the legacy of an industry that thought regulation was the only cure for improving safety and risk management’ so the route to changing how we  manage safety is a challenging one. I have said this before; Behaviour Based Safety (BBS) is a step in the right direction but yet again this is another safety item ‘bolted’ into place. We need to look a little deeper and at ourselves as safety advisors and the methods we use communicate and deal with the many walks of life (i.e. our employees).

And that concludes Genwhyask’s take on the practicalities of safety. Thank you for all those who commented to my article on ‘Its Practically Safe’ which allowed me to put this
very ‘practical’ summary together. As always I would love to hear any additional comments you may have.

Orla…

Sometimes when people ask me what professional area I work in, I am reluctant to say ‘safety’, simply because people give you that look. I can see words like Roadblock, Overboard, Impractical, Boring, Beurocratic written all over their face…….!!! Although safety is paramount, and people know it is essential to our everyday working lives it still has that avoidable / unavoidable stigma attached to it – why?

Personally I think we need to bring back an element of common sense to safety in order to make employees feel like they are in control / empowered again. We apply the Principals of Prevention to our business works and practices in order to eliminate human error, but have we thought about the cultural consequences when considering controls? Are we missing this vital step in our Principles of Prevention?

In recent years Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) has taken over our approach to safety, although a step in the right direction I think we are missing the empowering factor (i.e. employees and the technical experts being integrated into the decision-making process). I don’t mean to introduce a margin of error but if we ‘empower’ we will encourage a cultural change not force one! People will be embedded in safety, instead of becoming slaves to it. We need to make people see the logic behind all of our actions, get them heavily involved and most importantly listen to what they have to say.

If any of my blog readers have children you can relate to what I mean. Humans are programmed to rebel when they are told what to do, perhaps rebel is too ‘strong’ a word but in short we don’t like to be told what to do because we have that ‘we are not stupid’ attitude. So in our approach to safety we should embed our people in our decision-making instead of citing from a written bible of instructions. In many instances we are so caught up on the legalities of safety that we lose sight of cultural change and understanding that makes safety successful.

I think we can find a balance between being legally compliant and keeping our employees content when it comes to safety. We can be practical without compromising on safety….

What do you think? Do you think we are so caught up on ‘covering our behinds’ and creating the patchwork effect^* that we lost sight of how to effectively encourage positive changes to behaviour and attitude? Should safety be more integrated in our business instead of being a separate element (which in many cases its it!).

I invite you all to comment, particularly those of you who do not have ‘QHSE’ in your title. What is your attitude towards the practicalities of safety?

* Patch Work Effect – Is a term I started to use in my work practices, it relates to a flaw or a gap in our management system which we create a patch for to ensure its covered. But we don’t really think about the bigger picture.