Go from Compliance to High Performance

by Sharon Hilts

You've gone through the rigors of making sure your organization is compliant with the piles of OSHA regulations that exist. So then why, oh why, are you still experiencing too many incidents?

Compliance, unfortunately, does not guarantee that your employees will not get injured. It attempts to put minimum standards in place so that blatantly non-safe situations don't exist. That leaves all the not-so-obvious, hazardous situations lurking in your organization just waiting to sneak up and pounce on your employees. Keep this hobgoblin in check by addressing shortfalls in the following areas:

Culture

Analyzing your organization's culture with regard to safety can be very telling. Ask for feedback on the influences of politics, accountability, and communication among other things via questionnaire. You may find, when analyzing results, that your systems are not working as intended. Administratively, you've got all your ducks in a row, but, in practice, folks are complying only on first shift or maybe everyone but management is complying.

System Maturity

A maturity assessment will help you determine the effectiveness of your systems. Rank each system, like Lockout/ Tagout, on how well it is working. Be honest with yourself and use a scale from 1 to 5. Soon you will be able to rank your systems from robust to needing improvement. Action items to fix them become easy to prioritize.

System Integration

How is safety incorporated into the different aspects of your business? Is safety included in the mission statement, performance reviews, employee orientation, sales activities? Where are safety considerations missing? Integration can help to enhance the culture and positively impact performance.

Convolution

Ask someone with fresh eyes, who hasn't previously read your safety procedures, how easy they are to understand. Are they confusing, or containing redundant information or irrelevant facts? Lean your systems. Keep your audience in mind and simplify, simplify, simplify. If you have a system that is not producing positive results, eg. behavior audits, then change it or, if not required, eliminate it.

Difficult to Solve Issues

If straightforward compliance is not preventing repetitive incidents from occurring, then pull out the heavy-hitter tools like root cause analysis and other six sigma tools. There's nothing like the DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) methodology to squash a problem and make sure that it never returns.

Ineffective Training

Is your organization struggling with keeping employees up-to-date on their safety training? Traveling employees, continuous shifts, high production demands, and vacations can all throw monkey wrenches into a beautifully constructed training schedule. Consider options for on-line learning. The training is consistent, testable, and available 24/7 to accommodate each individual's schedule.

For assistance with any of the areas above, contact Insyte Consulting at 716.636.3626.

Sharon Hilts is an Insyte consultant. Her leadership focus on safety improvement has resulted in significantly fewer recordable incidents and corporate awards in OSHA's Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP).