National Safe Work Month Tips

We are about to enter October 2016, which means the start of Safe Work Australia’s National Safe Work month. So what are the Safe Work Australia suggestions this year and how can we really take advantage of them?

 October Action Plan Suggestions:

1. Leaders to Lead by Example
2. Know the current regulations and follow them
3. Provide training for new staff and refresher training for existing staff, new training materials.
4. Use the safest and most up-to-date equipment available
5. Challenge yourself to think about your processes
6. Make the conversations positive about protecting your people every day

1. What is meant by ‘Leaders to lead by example’, and how can we demonstrate we are really leading?

Supervisors, leading hands and or anyone who is in a position to lead others are critical to business outcomes, both productivity, and culture /morale. One of the most important parts we tend to forget is to actually lead by example (be seen doing some practical work to guide others to do the same). Leadership is more than just skills, it is also an art; having skills in task and technical is very important as is understanding how to influence people.

Here are a couple of key points to consider for leading:

• Listen: Learn to stop and listen for “cues” hear their values and concerns. Get to know your people.

• Observe: Observe what your people do in their work activities, look for distraction (lack of concentration), look for confidence (as well as over confidence). The observing process for a leader should also be known as the learning stage, to be a great leader you need to learn from those around you.
• Serve: Understand to be a leader, you have to be a servant to your people.

• Make things simple to follow, try to get your team all they need to do their job and know when you can be flexible.

• Leader – Follower – Follower – Leader: A good leader knows to let followers lead, to be autonomous. They also know to search and mentor the next leader. Allow the next potential leader to lead toolboxes and small groups, this is the production level. To produce good outcomes we need to lead by example, show how it is done. By showing and guiding your people you will create momentum, with momentum you will better solve problems as everyone will be interested and on the lookout for roadblocks.

• Grow: Leaders need to be selective with who they choose to be on their team, and start to develop their people. Knowing how and where to position your team to gain the best results is critical. Find and understand what the person’s best niche “what they are best at doing.” This is a critical step, example: If we play a football team all out of their normal positions they will more likely lose the game, even to a lesser class team, as people strive best in the positions they love and know best how to perform. It is no different in business.

• Know: Leaders need to get to know the personality traits of the individuals in their team, to better identify stress, overconfidence, depression etc. , Know who needs support and who need autonomy, remember, it is no longer about you it is about the art to create and influence others.

It is critical in leadership to know it is all about empowering your team with their own leadership.

2. What is meant by ‘know the current regulations and follow them’? How can we demonstrate we are doing so in our day to day actions?

A lot of times with the best of intentions, we are “paper based compliant”, we are compliant to the act, regulations and standards by paper, however our actions do not reflect this.

Here are a couple of key points to consider for Following Regulations:

• When developing or reviewing company policies procedures and work instructions, it is critical to ensure that personnel who carry out the task are heavily involved in the steps, as they will be the ones who will "practically" need to mirror reflect what is trying to be achieved on paper.

• Try not to over complicate the amount of paper work so they can easily remember what is expected of them. Sometimes with good intentions to comply, we bound people’s rationality by flooding them with too much information.

• Be mindful to keep reviewing practical tasks against what the instructions are saying, as many variables can lead to changes in behaviour and actions, this will then reflect as if people are not following  company regulations.

It is critical to understand that to know your regulations and follow them, all personnel need to personally know them without having to think about it (remember, try not to over complicate what you are saying the company will do, this will make it easier to follow).

3. It is extremely important to provide training for new staff and refresher training for existing staff. What are some ways we can make our training more effective?

Here are a couple of key points to consider for better knowledge development:

• Make training an interactive learning experience, not death by power point, experiential learning that relates to real life may help keep people awake.

• Change up a gear or two with better ways to part knowledge (new materials). When doing refresher training or even inductions, if we have seen the same materials a thousand times we are not interested and will possible switch off. Get the audience involved with their experiences too.

• When training people on safety, we tend to use the same methods for hazard identification and risk management. Think of ways to train hazards and risks that are related to people’s actions (decision making), perceptions, biases and heuristics. When we learn more about how people really tick it takes the focus away from the physical objects and more into the head space of people, complex but critical for understanding and managing risk.

Training should motivate attendees not put them to sleep.

4. It is important to try keep up with technology, so most organisations try to use the safest and most up-to-date equipment available. What impact can occur with new and existing Equipment?

Here are a couple of key points to consider for better understanding and using Equipment:

• When introducing equipment, be mindful that the risk you may be controlling with the equipment will possibly create a new, un-noticeable, risk by-products. We can be distracted by the equipment and not notice the new interactions of people.

• Making sure your equipment register and maintenance is up to date is critical, as is checking the equipment over when it returns from service. Being mindful that things get missed, even by experts.

• Daily check of equipment before use is a good habit to get personnel into, when using things like harnesses, I used to have someone else check it over even though I had checked it myself, sometimes we just miss stuff.

• When purchasing new equipment, do comparative research on all types available, and consult the findings with all personnel who will operate it as they may have different views and values to add.

• It is important to consider, if we modify or make band aide fixes to machinery / equipment through maintenance, it  may change the way operators interact / use the equipment.

5. When challenging yourself to think about your processes, it can be seen as an individual step, our suggestion here is to recognise that it is a social step, due to social influences on all we do. Processes and the steps we take for them are critical for risk outcomes.

Here are a couple of key points to consider challenging yourself, to think about company processes:

• Processes can be impacted by so many variables, it is critical to consider all involved collective views and  sense-making on processes all the time. Thinking of worst case scenarios and having a plan for the unforeseen day that it may crop up, will help prevent your business coming to a halt.

• Brain storming the different ways people may interpret processes is a great way of understanding and managing risk potentials, we all develop heuristics (rules of thumb) differently, we all have our own biases which will influence the way we see and carry out process.

It is so important to keep on challenging ourselves with our processes, this will help us grow and learn new innovative ways to improve company processes. Remember everyone in your company should be involved in this process.

6. Communication and conversation is another critical aspect we need to get right in our organisations. To make the conversations positive about protecting your people every day is not as easy as having a courageous conversation or behavioural observation.

Powerful conversations for risk and safety are critical, Socratic questioning is a great way to kick off, as listening is the most important part of conversations, open questions allows this. E.g.

What is the nature of ...?

What do we already know about this?

Can you give me an example?

Are you saying ... or ...?

How did you choose those assumptions?

Please explain why/how ...?

How can you verify or disprove that assumption?

What would happen if ...?

Do you agree or disagree with ...?

Why is that happening?

How do you know this?

Show me ...?

Can you give me an example of that?

What do you think causes ...?

Another way of looking at this is ..., does this seem reasonable?

What alternative ways of looking at this are there?

Why it is ... necessary?

What’s another way of looking at this?

Am I making sense? Why not?

Why do you think I asked this question?

What does that mean?

Then what would happen?

What are the implications of...?

How does ... affect ...?

• Conversation should not be about telling or dictation. Conversations should be more open and transparent this way we can learn the perceptions of others, their views, and how they make sense of the world. Being positive even in negative situations is important, there is nothing worse than feeling like you’re in trouble or what was done was deliberate. Most situations have good intentions. Another important point to think about is how others may interpret what you are saying. Do they really understand what you mean, or are they hearing what you are saying differently? How can you ensure they get what you mean?

Make the most of National Safe Work Month this October and add some real value to the point Safe Work Australia are suggesting. If there is more information you would like to know about any of the suggested points drop us a line at http://www.humanrysk.com.au/contact-us.html

Let’s put some good back into safety this October!