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!

RIO Tinto Loss - “Please be safe in all you do?”

It is very sad to hear of another death in the mining industry in Australia. It is of great concern that we keep having fatalities, yet we keep doing the same of the same with our legislation and the way we manage risk with systems. With the greatest intentions Rio Tinto’s last comment in their statement was “please be safe in all you do”, as well as, “they are trying their best to eliminate fatalities”.

When are we going to stop doing the same of the same and start looking outside the box? I remember my first thoughts when I entered the workforce as a young fellow, there were many procedures rules and regulations, but not all were easy to remember, follow or even make sense of. When the procedures were made there was minimal consultation with what should be included in the SWIMS / Procedures. We are all human and we are all fallible, we interpret the world differently to one another and many times don’t even realise it, our personalities, biases, heuristics, social arrangements and automaticity have a massive impact on how we make sense of risk and how we make decisions. So if we think that behaviorism programs and systems are going to prevent fatalities and injuries, we sure have a lot more to learn.

I had an opportunity to experience yet again another business who  thought they needed a “Risk Specialist” to manage a large number of people and sites across the country and overseas, it was sounding like they were looking for a “Safety Superhero”. How do we really think that one person in a company or safety systems are going to control and manage risk? I asked what about the managers, do they take responsibility for safety? The response was no that’s the risk specialist job! Businesses are still expecting one person to be responsible for the whole company’s risk and across multiple sites without empowering their leaders and people to take ownership. How do businesses expect their risk management to be managed if the only ‘Risk Specialist’ is in Darwin and there is a high risk activity happening in Hobart?

Risk is uncertainty, not numbers and graphs. We can talk about risk and still not know what the outcomes are going to be until we do the task and see the results. When are we going to realise that safety management systems don’t control people’s decisions, it’s actually the people who interpret and make sense of the systems and the outcomes. To become more resilient to risk, we need to better understand what makes people tick, understand their “Y” (personalities) and how social arrangements, and business culture impacts decision making with managing and working with risk.

Other than the old traditional ways of doing safety, what methods are you and your business doing to  better understand decision making with risk?

Is your business utilizing collective mindfulness, sense-making and social psychological fundamentals to empower your people to be more open, communicative, and voicing their opinion when managing risk?

Is your business overwhelming employees with documents to the point they are silently adding no value, therefore employees are of the ‘tick and flick’ mentality rather than genuinely identifying and managing risk?

What tools and training is there to help better educate our staff and ourselves of risk management, rather than the same old tools that are giving us the same old results? How are we making sense of risk?

Even though it is not fully understood what the causation of this latest fatality was for Rio Tinto, I think it is vital we start with the basics of “know yourself and know your team collectively”. Better understanding people and what makes us tick, will ensure we have better systems that will actually add value rather than just gain compliance, it will go back to the basics of knowing the importance of every person’s views matter. Let’s hope our industries realise that the new trainings available will influence true culture change before it is too late.

Our sincerest thoughts go out to the family and friends of the worker who passed.

Honey they get me! They get me at work!

Wouldn’t it be great if our employees all felt they were understood in our business? I often hear business managers/owners saying how frustrated they are to have their staff not following procedures, making mistakes, being injured or their plans not going to plan.

                                                             

If you don’t know your own or your teams “individual code” (Their “Y”) it makes it near impossible to get to where you want to go smoothly. The old Peter Drucker statement “Culture eats Strategies for Breakfast”, hits home about the reality of our business culture’s impact on the direction of where our business is going. We all see, hear and interpret the world differently, so why is that? We are hard wired at birth with a personality, which is then influenced a lot by our social arrangements that affect what we believe and how we go about our business such as: family beliefs, school, sports, religion, money and many more.

When we look at the four key temperaments of personality it gives us an indication on how really different we are. So let’s look at four samples and then imagine how they may affect the workplace.

The Four Temperaments:

Guardian: They are certain and organised, tend to love schedules. They seek security and belonging, they are concerned with responsibility and duty. They excel at organizing, facilitating, checklists and supporting.

Rational: They are abstract and objective. They tend to seek mastery and self-control, they are concerned with their own knowledge and competence. They excel in any kind of logical investigation such as engineering, conceptualizing, theorizing, and coordinating they are great strategists.

Idealist: They are abstract and compassionate. They seek meaning and significance, they are concerned with personal growth and finding their own unique identity. They excel at clarifying, individualizing, unifying, and inspiring.

Artisan: They are concrete and adaptable. They tend to seek stimulation and craftsmanship; they are concerned with making an impact. They excel at troubleshooting, responsiveness, and the creative handling of tools, instruments, and equipment.

The above four are just samples to what types of people we may have in our business and how they see and value the world.

       

                                                              

There are 16 different types of “Y’s” to understand. Carl Jung’s model includes 4 ways to collect data (Perception) and 4 ways to organise information and make decisions (Judgment). We all have the ability to collect data in all 4 ways, but we only have preference to use one of these functions.

An example is catching a cricket ball.

•          Extraverted Sensing (Se): How and where to catch a ball.

•          Introverted Sensing (Si): Know where to run from past experience.

•          Extraverted Intuition (Ne): Estimate where the ball could end up.

•         Introverted Intuition (Ni): Picture the ball from several ways and estimate where you could catch it.

If we don’t all process how to catch a ball the same way, then how do groups of employees make sense of risks and company procedures? We need to understand how to have the right discussions and “listen” carefully to one another and be mindful of our team’s collective views.

We also need to consider how we use our own individual persona to perhaps guard our weaknesses or to influence how others perceive us. This may hide our true strengths from flourishing to the forefront. Then to put a spin on things we have the environments we live/grew up in (mum, dad, teachers, coaches) who also influence our biases and the development of our rules of thumb (Heuristics). So when we start to understand these critical points, we start to see how our culture is influenced and impacts our business’s trajectories.

Are we as business owners, managers, supervisors, using the best language to communicate affectively to our teams “Y”, to ensure we are all in the same direction to our business’s end goals? Or are we not understanding how critical it is to understand personalities and language when listening and communicating, instead we are all unintentionally heading in different directions? 

Imagine if we cohesively put together the three critical elements in our business!

1.     Safety & management systems.

2.     Individual culture, biases, heuristics, “Y” (Personality).

3.     Group Cultural influences, language, biases, “Y” (Personalities).

In business we have our systems, tools and equipment as our foundations, however we need to understand each other and how the impact us on a day to day basis. We also need to consider group influences and how language and world views influences the decision making of groups and individuals. To put it simply, if we know how to listen to and untangle the language of an individual as well as considering our own biases/beliefs, perhaps then and only then we can really connect and understand how we all see risk differently. This actually means “common sense” is not common, but only common to individuals in their closest social arrangements.

When we really want employee dedication and commitment towards work, then we need to consider empowering them by understanding and listening to their point of views. I remember working for a company who showed they wanted to listen, took on our views and encouraged input to the direction of the business. This empowered us, employee morale was high, absenteeism was low, safety and quality efficiencies were at their best and the bottom line of the business was highly profitable.

Safe Work Australia have been working to understand why workplaces are still having injuries and fatalities even though the legislation changed to harmonisation laws. Why are company procedures and policies not working? To be successful with risk management there are more concepts to understand and apply than just complying with laws. Going back to basics means we will actually need to consider the valuable knowledge, experience and decision making of employees and how they view the world. This will help businesses to become more resilient with risk and safety.

We believe in helping businesses get to know their people better and empower their people to better manage risk, call us if you are ready to turn your business around in 2016.