Wilmington, Delaware, August 15, 2007
Mike Carroll is a principal consultant with DuPont Safety Resources. Below he shares several insights he has gained through recent experience with safety programs designed for major DuPont clients.
Changing culture requires changing behaviors. If you want to experience a true safety culture change, it is necessary to test that the safety programs you put in place are changing behavior in the field. Even organizations that have established the right safety procedures and training may discover that they aren’t being followed.
How can you measure for changed behavior? At DuPont, our experience working with clients has shown that a culture assessment is critical to understanding the prevailing attitudes and behaviors that lead to a high incident and injury rate. Organizations may find that they are not achieving the behavioral and attitude changes they seek, and an organizational diagnostic can help reveal the breakdowns in the safety program.
Interviewing various levels of the organization through independent surveys can also help identify patterns and uncover the weak points. You may find that an organization’s line leadership is not perceived as taking the safety program seriously, potentially weakening the organization’s commitment to the program. It is also possible that the safety procedures aren’t understood or well communicated.
Some obstacles to success may involve issues at the local level; for example, local management may not feel the safety program is important, or the organization may not demonstrate to their staff that a behavior change is truly necessary. Or sometimes first line supervisors aren’t in tune with their organization – that’s when management may conduct one-on-one coaching with the supervisors to clarify that they demand a change in the field.
Safety observations will also yield insight into the reality of a company’s safety practices, and whether or not the new procedures are being followed. Training the safety organization to conduct observations enables them to keep a pulse on the behaviors and attitudes. And of course, organizations must demand that safety leaders assume accountability early in the project and take a clear role leading the behavior change.
Safety cannot be adopted as a core value overnight. The ultimate goal of a safety culture change program is to increase the capabilities of the organization’s employees and leaders, so that they can sustain the changes over the long-term. Assessing behaviors throughout the progress of the program keeps a pulse on adoption and helps sense potential obstacles.
