June 2010 Safety Message

Safety Leadership

A strong safety culture is determined by the values and priorities placed on all aspects of safety by everyone at every level of an organization or company, and how managers, supervisors and the workforce behave on a day to day basis. The role of managers and supervisors is critical to building a strong safety culture by their ability to demonstrate strong safety leadership skills.

Success in health and safety management depends upon the safety leadership skills of these supervisors and managers, as they determine the extent to which safety rules and procedures are adhered to in reality. Supervisors and managers also act as the interface between management and the work force and therefore the avenue for communication in safety.

There are three core elements to effective strong safety leadership and they include acting as a role model, motivating the workforce to behave safely and understanding and monitoring work for safety performance. A safety leader must demonstrate the value and care for all workers, understand how workers work to achieve their results by visiting the workplace daily, lead and facilitate group discussions amongst the workers for safe decision making and carry out effective safety communication in the workplace.

With a strong safety culture in place, senior management sets the tone and the supervisor takes over through strong safety leadership by recognizing the skills and abilities of all employees, assessing their training needs and ensuring they perform with safe equipment, encouraging the employees to work safely, reinforcing the benefits of good housekeeping and proper maintenance, encouraging all employees to report problems and near misses, understanding the problems and issues that employees face in their daily tasks and communicating for change and finally demonstrating positive reinforcement for safe behaviour and proper discipline for unsafe actions.

Strong safety leadership builds a strong safety culture. Every single person in our organization must lead at least one person……and that’s you.