Safety is never a solo job. To succeed, safety professionals need to form partnerships at all levels of the organization – especially with frontline supervisors who oversee workers day in and day out.
“Supervisors, after all, set the daily tone for the company,” said Chuck Douros, corporate director of safety for Nashville, TN-based BFC Solutions. “They deliver the priorities, they establish the pace, they set the attitude for the day. So, teaching frontline leaders to proactively coach for performance and safety is one of the most powerful things a safety professional can do for the organization.”
Frontline supervisors also are responsible for many safety-related functions – from inspections and observations to making sure workers are properly qualified, trained and equipped to perform their jobs. This means their support can make or break a safety program, said Amy Harper, senior director of workplace training and consulting at the National Safety Council, which offers training through its Supervisors’ Safety Development Program.
“Supervisors are the linchpin to company safety being implemented enthusiastically or undermined,” Harper said. “They’re either the friend or the foe of safety – there’s not a lot of middle ground.”
And that’s where matters get tricky, because not all supervisors are eager to cooperate with safety programs or make them a top priority, and even those who are willing aren’t always effective safety leaders. Safety+Health asked Douros, Harper and other experts to identify the root causes of problems safety pros face in developing supervisors as safety leaders, and to provide practical solutions.
Problem 1: The reluctant safety leader
No supervisor wants to see a worker injured on his or her watch. So why do some appear indifferent – or even resistant – to safety programs and policies?
They don’t trust you (yet). Attempting to force a reluctant supervisor to get in line with safety initiatives isn’t an option, said Judy Agnew, senior vice president of safety solutions at Atlanta-based Aubrey Daniels International. As Agnew pointed out, safety pros don’t usually hold formal positions of authority over supervisors, and even if they did, mandating safety never really works.
“What we know from the science of behavior is, if you take a negative, directive approach – what we call the ‘do-it-or-else approach’ – you’re going to get resistance,” Agnew said. “People will do only as much as they have to.”
The better alternative, she suggested, is to exercise positive influence, which relies on good relationships.
Relationships matter because they affect how people receive and respond to feedback, especially feedback that can be interpreted as criticism. Steven Simon, founder and president of Larchmont, NY-based Culture Change Consultants Inc., gave the example of having to speak to a frontline supervisor about workers not locking and tagging out equipment.
“In the absence of a good working relationship, it becomes a battle,” Simon said. “Nobody wants to listen to someone who’s coming down on them and doesn’t know where they come from. And everybody’s willing to have a conversation if they think you understand and have empathy for their situation.”
So, how can you convince supervisors that you’re all on the same team? The key, the experts agreed, is to position yourself as a coach, resource and partner, rather than the traditional “safety cop.”
“If safety professionals come across as compliance-focused ‘clipboard commandos’ – somebody who’s coming to inspect and find fault rather than to have a conversation and find solutions – that’s a mistake,” Harper said.
Instead, she recommended asking a lot of “why” questions and listening carefully. “You’re a lot more approachable and more likely to build good relationships with supervisors if you seek to understand first,” she continued. “Because they have very good reasons why they do things a certain way now; you just have to understand what those reasons are so you can address the real issue.”
They’re overwhelmed. Supervisors may see safety as one more task you’re asking them to cram into a schedule that’s already jam-packed.
“Too many supervisors are torn because they have to plan the work, they’re pulled into meetings, they’ve got reports to write and then they’ve got a million emails to answer,” Agnew said. “Many organizations have made it impossible for their supervisors to be good safety leaders because they’re so busy that they simply don’t have time to be out in the field or on the shop floor.”
Aside from advocating to management on supervisors’ behalf, safety pros don’t have many options to reduce these pressures. However, they can help maximize the impact of the time supervisors spend on safety.
“If supervisors can only interact with their direct reports once or twice a day, then help them think through the best time to do it and the biggest risks and hazards to focus on,” Agnew said. “Even better, give them something small, concrete and easy to do, like, ‘When you interact with your mechanics today, ask them what hazards they identified in their pre-task assessment,’ and then follow up. You’re likely to hear: A) ‘It wasn’t that hard to do,’ and B) ‘It actually helped!’”
They aren’t sure what they’re committing to. Supervisors may be in favor of safety leadership in theory but hesitant because they don’t know what it requires in practice.
“If you ask the average supervisor what a good safety leader would do over the course of a day or week, they cannot tell you in specifics, which is part of why they’re not doing it,” Agnew said. “If you want them to have three safety interactions in a day, or discuss hazards during a pre-shift meeting, then lay that out specifically.”
They aren’t in on the plan. It’s easy to understand why supervisors might be resistant to a safety directive that’s planned and implemented without their input.
“It’s often been said that people support what they create,” Douros said. “Imagine a three-day workshop where safety leaders and the senior team get in a room and bang out a three-year strategy, including a set of initiatives. And then they hand that strategy to supervisors in a document and say, ‘Make it happen.’ Now, imagine a workshop where they include a select group of key supervisor stakeholders, who spend three days elbow to elbow with the leadership team and are a substantial part of the strategy. It’s our experience that the supervisors then become far more willing to participate – not just now or a month from now, but three to five years from now.”
This approach can be particularly helpful when dealing with safety “non-believers.” Instead of bypassing them, try recruiting them to a safety committee or task force.
“If they’re part of the solution, they’re less likely to resist the efforts or voice their displeasure,” Harper said.
Problem 2: The ‘safety-third’ leader
When supervisors say they support your initiatives but relegate “safety first” to a distant third behind priorities such as production and quality, experts say it’s often because:
They’re getting mixed signals. What you see as a lack of commitment to safety on the front lines may actually be supervisors coping with a lack of alignment in safety messaging across the organization.
“Supervisors are being told that safety is No. 1,” Simon said. “But really, production is No. 1. For example, if we have the value that it’s OK to stop the production line when there’s a safety issue, a mixed message would be, ‘If you stop the line, you’re going to get called on the carpet for why production is down, and you’d better be right – you’d better justify it.’”
Safety pros can help clarify these messages by facilitating more open dialogue across different levels of the organization. First, Simon suggested, try sitting down with a few supervisors, asking about any mixed messages that interfere with their safety efforts, and then raising those issues with management at a staff meeting.
“Once they realize supervisors don’t trust that they’re going to be backed up and supported, I’ve seen site managers call supervisors together and say, ‘Listen, I don’t want anybody getting hurt in this plant. I am willing to stop the line, and if you’re wrong and it wasn’t really a safety issue, I want you to know I’ve got your back.’”
Remember that safety doesn’t have to be at odds with other priorities. For example, UCOR, an environmental cleanup and nuclear operations contractor for the Department of Energy, has aligned its productivity and safety goals “to the point where they’re synonymous with one another,” said Clinton Wolfley, vice president of safety systems and services for the Oak Ridge, TN-based organization. “That means that the greater the production, the greater the safety, and vice versa. We can take on higher-risk work with confidence because of the emphasis we’ve placed on safety.”
“They deliver the priorities, they establish the pace, they set the attitude for the day. So, teaching frontline leaders to proactively coach for performance and safety is one of the most powerful things a safety professional can do for the organization.”
Chuck Douros
Corporate director of safety
BFC Solutions
They aren’t getting adequate feedback on safety metrics. It’s natural for supervisors to focus on what they’re being evaluated most frequently.
“Safety metrics often get recorded and talked about on a monthly basis, whereas production and quality metrics are being passed down to supervisors sometimes on an hourly basis,” Harper said.
One reason for this discrepancy is a focus on lagging indicators of safety performance, such as incident rates.
“If supervisors are only held accountable for how many incidents they have, then a supervisor who hasn’t had an incident for a while can assume all is well and focus on other things,” Agnew said. “They know their boss isn’t going to say anything to them about safety, but will definitely ask about other key performance indicators.”
Agnew also pointed out that a lack of incidents doesn’t necessarily mean a crew is safe.
Harper suggested working with your human resources department to build leading indicators into performance rating systems or incentive programs. These measures could include:
- Preventive activities that can be tracked on a daily or weekly basis, such as inspections and observations.
- Closure rates for corrective actions on issues that come up in audits or inspections.
- Risk scores for particular activities that can be tracked and lowered as controls are put in place.
Problem 3: The ineffective safety leader
When supervisors care deeply about worker safety but can’t seem to channel that enthusiasm into effective safety leadership, it’s often because:
They lack training and coaching. Many supervisors weren’t chosen for their leadership skills.
“A lot of times, your best skilled labor becomes frontline supervisors,” Wolfley said. “And what we’ve seen in the past is that a lot of those supervisors get very little to no training on how to lead, so they rely on their own experience and how they were treated.”
That doesn’t always bode well for safety leadership, which is one reason UCOR emphasizes professional development for new supervisors, using tools such as extensive training as well as certification through the Board of Certified Safety Professionals’ Safety Trained Supervisor Construction program.
“The more education, awareness and tools you give to first-line supervisors, the better they can make informed decisions,” Wolfley said.
“So much of safety for people is negative. We’ve got to start turning that around, celebrating our successes and recognizing people for what they are doing well.”
Judy Agnew
Senior vice president of safety solutions
Aubrey Daniels International
They can be “clipboard commandos,” too. Supervisors face many of the same leadership challenges as safety pros, especially if they haven’t been coached to avoid common missteps.
“There are still many supervisors who say their role is to serve as the enforcer,” Agnew said. “If we really want to get people engaged and helping, then we can’t set our supervisors up to be the safety cop.”
Safety pros can counter the “enforcer” mentality by modeling the behaviors they’d like to see, such as asking questions instead of rushing to judgment.
“Supervisors really need to understand why their workers are taking risks,” Douros said. “We can’t prescribe before we diagnose, and we can’t diagnose without an inquiry, without asking why.”
Are workers taking risks consciously or just out of habit? Is an obstacle (such as broken or missing equipment) keeping them from doing their work safely?
The answers to these questions will help supervisors identify and address the real problems behind risky behaviors.
Positive feedback is another powerful tool safety pros can demonstrate for supervisors, because many only hear about safety when they’ve done something wrong.
“So much of safety for people is negative,” Agnew said. “We’ve got to start turning that around, celebrating our successes and recognizing people for what they are doing well.”
