Ever wonder why your safety culture is lacking, ever wonder why your employees just seem to lack the commitment to safety you publicly expect? Well, let us look at a few indicators of a lacking culture.
The Organization Lacks the Resources:
For a cultural shift to take place employees must be provided the resources to make that shift. The resources include training and skills. You must provide the educational resources for employees to understand and be productive. Too many times employers do not afford the time it takes to acquire new task. They get caught up in the demands of productions and end up concentrating on pushing the envelope to get the target out the door. The biggest contributing factors workplace injuries is the push to get employees to work faster. If pushing to beat the clock is habitual in the workplace then its easy to figure out as an employee that boss is more interested in production than safety. This type of culture leads to employees cutting corners to please the boss. A good example is in the roofing industry, employees are paid by the piece, so they are encouraged to put up as many pieces as possible in the smallest amount of time. The result is the employees have a culture that they believe that fall protection only slows them down, they cannot make as much money and the boss is not pleased because the roof takes longer. I am not aware of any study that proves roofers are more productive without fall protection. But what I am aware of falls in construction is still one of the leading causes of workplace fatalities in that industry
The Organization Lacks leadership
In my opinion based on what I have seen and learned over the years is that virtually if not all workplace injuries, fatalities, or regulatory actions are a result of pure and simple lack of leadership. There is a problem particularly in the construction industry that there is no need for a leader to be on the job site. I have never been able to wrap my mind around that concept. For a culture of safety to exist there has the be buy-in by the leadership which requires, no dictates, that there be a leadership presence on every job site. The old parable that “when the cats away the mice will play” certainly proves out to be more of prediction of fact. If the leadership of any given company is not committed, then ask yourself how in the world do you expect your labor to be committed. Your lack luster attitude towards safety is telegraphed to the employees and eventually to the product your company produces.
The Organization Lacks Communication
In other words, you do not practice what you preach. Your organization seeks input from labor, but no action is ever taken or worse, you have the one leader on the floor that takes negative action on the labor for voicing their concerns. Ask the labor about their concerns, the hazards they face after all they are the ones doing the work. Take hard honest look at what they are saying, listen to them, and analyze the input. Then act on it. Provide the feed back to the employees regardless of how silly the concern is. If you have that one leader that scoffs at employees concerns or is hard on them when they bring it, then that is the source of your production problem right there. Leaders Lead!
Granted not every suggestion or concern that you will get is valid or useful. Some might also be good ideas that for one reason or another are not economically feasible. Look at this way, if an employee took the time to offer their concerns, then at the very least have a brief conversation so that they know their feedback was taken seriously. By so doing it will give the employee a feeling of empowerment and feeling of belonging to an organization that values them for their contribution to the effort.

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