Getting Top Management Commitment

It is essential to the success of your company's safety and health program that top management demonstrates not only an interest, but a long term serious commitment to protect every employee from injury and illness on the job. But, if you think you don't have that level of commitment, how do you get it? Real commitment doesn't just appear out of thin air. What is the secret?

The 5-P's in a Safety Management System

Management commitment to safety will occur to the extent each manager clearly understands the positive benefits derived from their effort. Understanding the benefits will create a strong desire to improve the company's safety culture. Managers will invest serious time and money into effective safety management by developing what I call the "5-P's" within a safety management system:

1. Programs
2. Policies
3. Plans
4. Processes, and
5. Procedures

Managers will also display leadership through effective accountability and recognition of behaviors and results. More on these topics later!

Why do managers make a commitment to safety? Employers put time and money into employee safety for one or more basic reasons: To fulfill the social imperative. This strategy is the most effective in the long term. These managers have come to the realization that long-term corporate survival depends on more than maximizing short-term profits. They will value and tap into the incredible creative potential of each employee, from janitor to president. These managers will appreciate the inherent value of each employee, not just as a worker, but as a corporate "family" member. They also value the roles each of their employees fulfills away from work as mothers, fathers, coaches, helpers, etc. Safety is perceived as a core corporate value that does not change when the going gets tough. When managers value safety at this level, they naturally employ the next two strategies. To fulfill the fiscal imperative. This strategy can be quite effective. Managers who are motivated to invest in safety understand the financial benefits derived from effective application of safety programs. The primary reason for "doing safety" shifts to maximizing profits. The goal is to fulfill the obligation to stakeholders to operate the business in a fiscally prudent manner. These managers will do whatever needs to be done proactively or reactively to save on direct and indirect costs of accidents. Management may display a commitment beyond minimum legal requirements if they see a financial advantage. Safety is most likely a high priority. However, commitment to safety may be subject to rapid change when the going gets tough.

• They want to fulfill the legal imperative. This is the least effective strategy. The primary goal for managers is to fulfill the obligation to comply with OSHA rules. Managers want to stay out of trouble, so they do only what has to be done to meet minimum requirements. Safety is not a priority or value, but thought of as a bother more than anything else: just the cost of doing business. Safety strategies are typically reactive because safety is not a problem unless there is an accident. OSHA may be considered the "bad guy" because management doesn't understand how OSHA can offer consultation services as well as enforcement activities. You need to be familiar with how OSHA works so here is a link to the OSHA Field Operations Manual. It's the OSHA Bible :-)

It's a question of leadership

Every day, employees, supervisors and managers have many opportunities to communicate and act in ways that demonstrate safety leadership. Unfortunately, these opportunities go unanswered because they are not seen as opportunities. Employers and manager do not understand that the simple expression of tough-caring safety leadership can result in enormous benefits. The inability to perceive leadership opportunities as they arise limits the company's potential to succeed.

It's appropriate to assume that employees at all levels of the organization are good people trying to do the best they can with what they've got. The problem is, they don't always have the physical resources and psychosocial support to achieve the kind of results expected of them. Why? Ultimately, the workplace culture may not support effective safety management and leadership.

The way we perceive "The way things are around here"...can exert a great influence on leadership styles. We can associate three fundamental leadership styles to the three management imperatives discussed above. Let's take a look at this association.

Tough-Coercive Leadership

In this leadership approach, managers are tough on safety to protect themselves: to avoid penalties. The manager's approach to controlling performance may primarily rely on the threat of punishment. The objective is to achieve compliance to fulfill legal or fiscal imperatives. The culture is fear-driven. Management resorts to an accountability system that emphasizes negative consequences. By what managers do and say, they may communicate negative messages to employees that establish or reinforce negative relationships. Here are some examples of what a tough-coercive leader might say:

• Punishment - "If I go down...I'm taking you all with me!" (I've heard this myself!)
• Punishment - "If you violate this safety rule, you will be fired."
• Punishment - "If you report hazards, you will be labeled a complainer."
• Negative reinforcement - "If you work accident free, you won't be fired."

As you might guess, fear-driven cultures, by definition cannot be effective in achieving world-class safety because employees work (and don't work) to avoid a negative consequence. Employees and managers all work to avoid punishment. Consequently, fear-driven thoughts, beliefs and decisions may be driving their behaviors. Bottom-line: a fear-driven safety culture will not work. It can not be effective for employees and managers at any level of the organization. It may be successful in achieving compliance, but that's it.

Tough-Controlling Leadership

Managers primarily using this approach are tough on safety to control losses. They have high standards for behavior and performance, and they control all aspects of work to ensure compliance.

This leadership approach is most frequently exhibited in the "traditional" management model. As employers gain greater understanding, attitudes and strategies to fulfill their legal and fiscal imperatives improve. They become more effective in designing safety systems that successfully reduce injuries and illnesses, thereby cutting production costs. Tight control is necessary to achieve numerical goals. Communication is typically top-down and information is used to control. A safety "director" is usually appointed to act as a cop: responsible for controlling the safety function.

Tough-controlling leaders move beyond the threat of punishment as the primary strategy to influence behavior. However, they will rely to a somewhat lesser extent on negative reinforcement and punishment to influence behavior. Positive reinforcement may also be used as a controlling strategy. Tough-controlling leadership styles may or may not result in a fear-based culture. Examples of what you might hear from a tough-controlling leader include:

• Negative reinforcement - "If you have an accident, you'll be disciplined."
• Negative reinforcement - "If you don't have an accident, you won't lose your bonus."
• Positive reinforcement - "If you comply with safety rules, you will be recognized."

Tough-Caring Leadership

Managers are tough on safety because they have high expectations and they insist their followers behave, and they care about the success of their employees first. This is a self-less leadership approach.

The tough-caring leadership model represents a major shift in leadership and management thinking from the selfish tough controlling model. Managers understand that complying with the law, controlling losses, and improving production can best be assured if employees are motivated, safe, and able.

Management understands that they can best fulfill their commitment to external customers by fulfilling their obligations to internal customers: their employees.

Communication is typically all-way: information is used to share so that everyone succeeds. A quantum leap in effective safety (and all other functions) occurs when employers adopt a tough-caring approach to leadership. Rather than being the safety cop, the safety manager is responsible to "help" all line managers and supervisors "do" safety. Line managers must be the cops, not the safety department. This results in dramatic positive changes in corporate culture which is success-driven.

Although positive reinforcement is the primary strategy used to influence behaviors, tough-caring leaders are not reluctant in administering discipline when it's justified because they understand it to be a matter of leadership. However, before they discipline, managers will first evaluate the degree to which they, themselves, have fulfilled their obligations to their employees. If they have failed in that effort, they will apologize and correct their own deficiency rather than discipline. What are you likely to hear from a tough-caring leader?

• Positive reinforcement - "If you comply with safety rules, report injuries and hazards, I will personally recognize you."
• Positive reinforcement - "If you get involved in the safety committee, you will be more promotable."
• Positive reinforcement - "If you suggest and help make improvements, I will personally recognize and reward you."

You can imagine that in a tough-caring safety culture, trust between management and labor is promoted through mutual respect, involvement and ownership in all aspects of workplace safety.

Are you really committed?   Show me the time and money.

Top management may communicate their support for safety, but the real test for commitment is the degree to which management acts on their communication with serious investments in time and money. When management merely communicates their interest in safety, but does not follow through with action, they are expressing moral support, not commitment.

Leaders get what they give!

Real commitment is an expression of tough-caring leadership by example. Integrity, character, and discipline are values that all managers seek in their employees. Employees will demonstrate these important attributes when (and only when) they see management exhibiting these values first. Great leaders truly care about those they lead. What better way to demonstrate leadership than by providing a safe and healthful place of work for all employees.

Just food for thought: If you're a manager or supervisor, ask yourself, "Do I really like my people?" If the answer isn't yes, start now to rethink your opinion because it's almost impossible to demonstrate caring leadership if you don't actually like your people.

"We choose to have zero injuries. We choose to have zero injuries this day and do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, because we care for ourselves and others too." S. Farnham, Safety Manager, Contrack, International

Managers get what they design!

They say "perception is reality." If you perceive a lack of top management commitment to safety and health, what can you do about it? First of all, think about fixing the system, not the blame. It's all about system design.

If management is not demonstrating commitment through action, you have an opportunity to become a key player to get things moving. With the help of the safety committee you can "educate up" to help management gain the all-important vision and understanding needed to positively affect attitudes and subsequent behaviors that give workplace safety the emphasis it deserves. Now let's take a look at what you can do.

We need to know who we are to be more effective at what we do

Your first step may be quite simple, yet it can have a major long-term impact on safety and health in the workplace. Propose that the company include the concept of safety in their vision statement and mission statement.

The vision statement let's the employee and customer know who you are by defining the role your company plays and what its basic values are. The vision statement reflects the corporate culture. One way to understand corporate culture is to think of it as the company's unique "personality" setting it apart from all others.

Sample Vision Statement - XYZ Widgets values its "relationship with customer" above all. To be successful we treat all employees as valued internal customers. We respect their ideas, value their work, and provide whatever is needed so that they may accomplish excellence in a safe-productive manner. Doing this empowers our employees so that they may manifest our values daily with our external customers.

The mission statement tells the world what you do -- why your company exists, by stating its intended purpose. The mission statement lets everyone know what your company's product or service is; who its customers are; what its service territory is.

Sample Mission Statement - It is the mission of XYZ Widgets to safely manufacture and deliver the highest quality megalithic cyberwidgets to our valued customers throughout the world.

If your company doesn't have a mission statement, try to develop one and convince management of the benefits that will result from a written mission statement. Now let's take a look at two basic approaches employers may adopt in safety and health program management.

Reactive vs. Proactive Safety Strategies

Don't just react to safety

It's sad but true - some companies have adopted an approach to safety and health that emphasizes a reactive strategy. A reactive approach assumes that accidents just happen, and there's not much that can be done about it. Consequently, the company places most of its effort into reacting to accidents after they occur. A reactive response occurs after an injury or illness and usually has the purpose of minimizing the costs associated with the injury or illness.

Reactive safety programs always cost much more than proactive programs...always...because they aren't implemented until an injury or illness has occurred. When management emphasizes a reactive approach to safety and health, it sends two negative messages to employees, (1) we don't care about you, and (2) it's all about money, not your safety. Here are some examples of reactive safety programs.

Be business smart...be proactive

A proactive strategy emphasizes prevention: doing whatever it takes to make sure accidents never happen in the workplace. There are no excuses for an accident. A proactive response to safety and health in the workplace occurs before an accident has occurred. It anticipates and tries to prevent accidents.

By emphasizing accident prevention, management sends a message of caring to all employees. Proactive strategies are always less expensive than reactive strategies because the company makes investments that result in potentially huge returns. Remember, proactive programs are implemented to prevent future injuries and illnesses. Here are some examples of proactive safety and health programs.

Goals and objectives

So now you have a vision and mission statement developed. The next step is to think of some proactive goals and objectives to improve your company's safety and health program.

Goals are easy to write. They're nothing more than wishes. For instance, a goal might be to "get everyone trained". However, operational objectives take a little more thought.

Objectives should have the following elements present:

• Starts with an action verb. (Decrease, increase, improve, etc.)
• Specifies a single key result to be accomplished.
• Is quantifiable. Uses numbers to measure a desired change. (i.e., 50% increase)
• Specifies a target date for accomplishment.

For example, operational safety objectives might be written like this:

• "Increase the number of safety suggestions to 25 a month by July 31st."
• "Reduce the number of back injuries in the warehouse by 70% by the end of 1997."

Remember to work with the safety committee to share the goals and objectives with everyone in the company. By the end of this course you should be able to think of many more ways to increase management commitment.

Talk money... the bottom line

Have you ever proposed a recommendation to correct a hazard or improve a procedure, only to have it fall on what appears to be deaf ears? Odds are, management cares very much about safety and health in the workplace, but like you, they are very busy. When a busy manager receives a recommendation from the safety committee, and it's merely a vague one-liner like, "We need to install a new guardrail in the warehouse," the likely response might be to put it on the back burner.

Dan Petersen, Author of Safety Management : A Human Approach, states that, "Management is first of all interested in how the safety professional's ideas relate to the profits of the organization. That is, what will management get in return for the money it is being asked to spend? Thus, safety people ought to be dollar-oriented when talking to management. Even if management understands the language of frequency and severity rates, dollar indicators ought to be used instead."

Effective recommendations describe costs and benefits

According to the National Safety Council, when considering all industries nationally, the average direct and indirect claim cost for a lost time injury is over $28,000, and a fatality averages $910,000.

Indirect costs, according to the NSC figures above, average 1.6x direct costs. However, it's important to understand that indirect costs may be much higher. Three things to remember in when estimating indirect costs:

• The lower the direct cost, the higher the ratio between the direct and indirect costs. For instance, if someone suffers only minor injury requiring a few hundred dollars to close the claim, the indirect/direct costs ratio may be much higher than the NSC average.

• Capital intensive operations, where large sums have been invested in facilities, realize higher and average indirect/direct cost ratios. For example, if someone is seriously or fatally injured on an oil-drilling rig, resulting in operations shutting down for a day or so, many thousands of dollars in lost production will result. In high capital intensive work processes, the expected ratio between direct and indirect costs may be 5x to 50x.

• Labor intensive operations, where more investment is made in labor than capital assets, realize lower indirect/direct cost ratios. Someone may suffer a serious injury, but operations are not as likely to be significantly impacted. In labor intensive operations the expected ratio between direct and indirect costs may be 2x to 10x.

Safety Pays!

Take a look and download OSHA's Safety Pays software program that can be helpful in determining direct and indirect cost.

You can use these figures to demonstrate the benefits of taking corrective action.

Your supervisor may ask you what the Return on Investment (ROI) will be. If the investment in corrective actions is $1,000, and the potential accident could cost the company $28,000 sometime in the foreseeable future (let's say five years), just divide $28,000 by $1,000 and you come up with 2800 percent. Divide that total by 5 years and you come up with an annual ROI of over 500 percent a year. Now that's a great return!

Management may want to know how quickly the investment will be paid back: what the Payback Period is. Just divide $28,000 by 60 months and you come up with $467 per month in potential accident costs. Since the investment is $1,000, it will be paid back in a little over two months. After that, the corrective action may be considered as actually saving the company some big money. Now that's talking the bottom line!

If you want, take a closer look at some key elements of an effective recommendation.

Plan the work, work the plan

Now you have some ammunition to help increase top management commitment that is so important to workplace safety and health. You'll receive many more tips and ideas about this throughout the course. An important step in making sure the above ideas are effectively applied is to develop an action plan to get top management commitment. An action plan is nothing more than a set of long-term strategies and short-term tactics ("how" statements).

Well, it's time to take your first module quiz. Remember, the quiz is for your review.

REVIEW QUIZ

This is an open book review quiz. It's important to complete this quiz as some of the final exam questions are derived directly from the questions within this module quiz. Immediately after submitting the quiz, you will receive a web page containing your answers and the correct "book" answers.