Winning The Hearts And Minds Of Workers In Relation To Safety – Advice To Managers, Supervisors And Safety People
Classic post by the late George Robotham
A manager in Nigeria, of all places, approached me to give some advice on getting the workers on side in safety. Rightly or wrongly the following is what I gave him.
Australian troops in Vietnam were quite successful in winning the hearts and minds of the local villagers. Here is some brief advice on winning the hearts and minds of workers in relationship to safety.
1 Set the safety example
2 Be honest and upfront, do not bullshit, you will usually be found out eventually and your credibility will suffer
3 Have a highly visible commitment to safety. Participate in safety meetings, accident investigations, audits, inspections etc. Outline your expectations of people attending safety training
4 Build trust with employees
5 Develop a mission, goals, objectives and a vision for the safety effort
6 Carry out a safety training needs analysis and train accordingly. Use interactive training not lectures
7 Hold people accountable for safety performance
8 Celebrate success
9 Do what you say you will do
10 Have high safety expectations
11 Give and encourage receiving regular feedback
12 Follow up on complaints and always report back
13 Praise good work
14 Respect others / Support others
15 Minimise the bureaucracy and have succinct paperwork