Safety Leadership

In a perfect world, safety would be easy. Leaders would look at past incidents, identify how to avoid them and make sure everyone followed the rules. But real life is not so simple. The workplace is always changing – making it critical that employees be able to detect and respond to real-time changes in risk.

As safety leaders, we focus on helping our organizations become and stay safe. We strive to understand the exposures employees face and find ways of systematically reducing them. We pride ourselves on building cultures that won’t tolerate risk, and developing leaders who carry that mission forward every day.

Three years ago, the first baby boomers reached retirement age, officially launching the demographic shift that will change the workforce as we know it. But it is not just a shortage of people that is driving change; it is a shortage of skills.

Discipline is a critical component of high-functioning safety systems. Used in the right way, discipline establishes an organization’s commitment to safety by enforcing the rules and procedures designed to keep people safe.

Getting employees to follow the rules – even those that keep them safe – is more difficult than simply having the desire to avoid injuries. Culture, leadership, organizational systems and other factors make up a complex system that interacts with, influences and guides workplace behavior.

Safety leaders routinely make decisions about exposures. Worker exposures to serious injury and fatality events present a particular problem.

As another year begins, safety leaders have much to be proud of. Across industry, organizations are enjoying record-low injury rates, a place for safety on the agenda and greater safety literacy across more employees than ever before.

From recycling and renewable energy to community investment and ethical sourcing, sustainability efforts have become a significant part of many company strategies.

Today’s changing workforce presents new variables that have the potential to undermine safety performance if not properly understood.