The supervisor, as an "agent of the employer," is charged with carrying out a very important responsibility; that of holding employees accountable for their actions. And, of course, the supervisor himself or herself is held accountable for carrying out this very important leadership responsibility.

Before a safety accountability system can be effectively implemented and applied, it must be understood. It's important to understand what accountability is, and how it functions to ensure safety system effectiveness. To better understand accountability, let's answer some very important questions:

• What is accountability?
• What are the behaviors for which an employee should be held accountable?
• How does a supervisor measure those employee behaviors?
• What are the obligations management must fulfill before holding employees accountable?
• What are appropriate and effective consequences?

With the above questions in mind, let's take a look at accountability in the workplace, and how we can implement and apply it.

Now that we're a little more familiar with the concept of accountability, let's examine what an effective accountability system looks like. There are five critical elements to an effective accountability system. Each of these elements must be present, or the system will be doomed to failure.

Established standards inform everyone about expected levels of performance and behavior. Standards of performance should be in writing and clearly stated so that everyone understands them. Standards of performance include the mission and vision statements, policies, written plans, job descriptions, procedures, and safety rules.

Element 2. Resources to achieve those standards

• "A Place of employment" includes safe tools, equipment, machinery, materials and facilities so employees can safely produce or provide the highest quality products or service. The place of employment should also provide a healthful physical environment that ensures minimum exposure to extremes in noise, toxic chemicals, hazardous atmospheres, and temperatures.
• "Employment" includes work procedures and practices that are make sure employees are free from hazards that will cause serious injury or illness. It also means a healthful psychosocial environment that minimizes distress by making sure employees have adequate control over the various aspects of their worklife. This includes healthful relationships with co-workers and management.

Once performance standards are established, processes should be developed to measure employee and manager behaviors against those standards. You are probably familiar with the process OSHA uses to measure your employer's safety performance. They conduct workplace inspections and issue citations.

Measurement implies more than merely observing behaviors. It's actually keeping track: quantifying behaviors. You put numbers to something. In the workplace, it's important that supervisors measure their employees' safety behaviors. And, managers should be measuring supervisors' activities. OSHA measures employer performance through an inspection process. They measure, they do not merely observe. And, as you know, OSHA issues citations that may include monetary penalties.

Without the expectation of consequences, accountability has no credibility and will not be effective. No consequences...no accountability. Effective consequences should meet certain criteria to be effective. This is the element with which everyone is probably most familiar. Unfortunately, in some companies, consequences are either not appropriate, not effective, or both. What are the criteria for appropriate consequences? They are justified. They correspond to the degree of positive or negative results of the behavior. They are applied consistently throughout the entire organization.

A basic rule of thumb for any accountability system states that, "a person should held accountable for a responsibility only if that person has control of the resources or the ability to fulfill that responsibility." If a person is being measured and held accountable for results over which they have no control, the person will attempt to gain control of those results somehow. That attempt may take the form of inappropriate behaviors. For example, a supervisor who's measured only on department accident rates may threaten to fire anyone who completes an OSHA injury report. Not only is the supervisor's behavior counterproductive for the company, it's illegal.

Your work schedule, the quality of materials provided, work assignments, production quotas, and the co-workers you work with, describe common aspects of your job that you may have little control over. Consequently, you should not be held accountable for these. On the other hand, how well you adhere to procedures, policies, rules, and carry out safety responsibilities is a personal behavior over which you do have some or complete control. You can choose to meet expectations or choose to "do it your way." The decision is yours to make. Therefore, accountability is appropriate.

• Consequences should increase with the severity of the potential injury or illness that might result from the behavior. If an employee performs an unsafe work practice that could result in a fatal injury to himself or another employee, that certainly warrants a serious consequence. On the other hand, if an employee violates a safety rule that will not result in an injury or illness, a less serious consequence may be more appropriate.

• Consequences should increase with the level of responsibility of the person performing the behavior. If an employee neglects to perform a safe work practice such as wearing his or her head protection discipline may be in order. However, if a supervisor or manager neglects to wear the head protection, a more severe level of discipline would be in order because of the position of responsibility they assume. The supervisor or manager, in fact, gives permission for all employees to do the same. The negative impact on the safety of employees has the potential to be much greater when the supervisor or manager violates a safety rule.
  On the other hand, if a supervisor or manager does something positive, the net impact will likely be greater than that of one of his or her employees. Consequently, more significant positive consequences are certainly in order.

It's critical to understand that before administering progressive discipline supervisors should evaluate (make a judgment about) how well they have fulfilled their own accountabilities. This is important to make sure they are actually justified in administering corrective actions.

Determining the appropriateness of administering negative consequences does not have to be difficult. It can be a simple straightforward process: All that's required is that you honestly answer the following four questions in the affirmative:

1. Have I provided the employee with a safe and health workplace? Do they have the physical resources and psychosocial support to comply?
2. Have I provided adequate safety supervision? I'm not stuck in my office all day...I'm overseeing their work regularly so that I'm able to "catch" unsafe behaviors and hazardous conditions before they cause an injury.
3. Have I provided (or has the employee received) quality safety training? The employee has the required knowledge and skills to comply. The employee understands the natural and system consequences of noncompliance.
4. Have I applied safety accountability fairly and consistently in the past? Does the employee know he or she will be disciplined if caught? Or, do they know that all you will do is threaten them..."if I catch you doing that again."

If you, as a supervisor, can honestly answer "yes" to each of the above four questions, it is probably appropriate to administer negative consequences because you have fulfilled your own accountabilities. If a supervisor cannot honestly answer each question in the affirmative, it's probably more appropriate to apologize and determine what safety system weaknesses exist so that they can be improved.

Let's take a look at the consequences that might result from two categories of employee/management safety behavior:

• Meeting or exceeding standards, and
• Failing to meet standards.

Meeting or exceeding standards. To restate: In an effective accountability system, positive recognition is given regularly (and hopefully often) for meeting or exceeding employer expectations.

If your company does not have a formal safety recognition program, take a look at some examples.

Failing to meet standards. In some companies, this is unfortunately the only category resulting in consequences. In an effective safety culture, corrective actions are rare and perceived as positive in the long term. Usually (not always), corrective actions involve some sort of progressive discipline

• Assessment. You inspect the accountability system policies, plans, procedures, and processes to identify what exists.

• Analysis. You then dissect and thoroughly study each accountability system policy, plan, procedure, and process to understand what they look like. The devil is in the detail.

• Evaluation. Finally, you compare and contrast each accountability system policy, plan, procedure, and process against benchmarks and best practices to judge their effectiveness.

Accountability is an extremely important element in the safety and health management system. Having a firm understanding of the concept and program will help ensure success.