Improve your safety culture with a simple phone call

The safety landscape continues to evolve in Canada’s energy sector. The good news is that policies, processes, procedures and tools have improved significantly. Safety reporting is much more comprehensive and evidence suggests that safety performance has improved in the past decade. However, safety statistics are lagging indicators. Today’s results reflect years of hard work and a significant investment of time and resources, including communications resources. Many companies have trimmed budgets. Equipment is aging and spending on maintenance and upkeep is not keeping pace. Head office resources have also been reduced, often including HSE and corporate communications staff.

As a result, many companies have sophisticated personal and process safety systems in place, but they aren’t effectively communicating safety messages. As one operator told us recently, “There is growing reliance on automated control systems to tell us when something is wrong, and fewer meaningful conversations about personal safety.”

Ongoing communications must be part of the process

In a cluttered information environment, you first need to get someone’s attention, find ways to engage them and finally ask them to commit to ideas and actions. Research shows that effective messages tend to be: personal (someone you know, like, trust, respect), visual, brief, positive, and unexpected, with a clear ask and a WIFM component (what’s in it for me).

It may be time to review your safety communications plan, see how it is being implemented and, most importantly, measure its effectiveness. It’s critical to ensure your messages are getting through and helping to create a sustainable and effective safety culture.

An emotional connection with safety

One of the best ways to move from a compliance mindset to a safety culture mindset is to create a powerful and positive emotional connection with safety:

• Move beyond stats and policies to create meaningful (in person) opportunities to explore past incidents and discuss the human toll and impact of safety failures.
• Discuss safety daily and provide team members with ample opportunities to engage and contribute on safety.
• Continually reinforce safety from the top and prominently recognize employees who demonstrate a commitment to safety.

A simple phone call

Think about the effect a five minute phone call from the CEO (or COO, VP HSE, etc.) might have on one of your employees (or teams) recognizing outstanding safety performance. It is personal. It will be a positive surprise. It has an emotional/human touch. This phone call is only one idea out of many that could help you energize your company’s safety communications and ensure everyone makes it home safe, every day.

A critical incident that takes your business offline, harms people or damages the environment presents a significant risk to your organization’s reputation. A simple phone call can be part of a plan to reinvigorate your safety communications.

If you are not sure where to start, NATIONAL can help. As the most trusted communications advisor to Canada’s leading energy companies, we can help move your organization’s safety culture to the next level, driving improved safety performance, stronger employee engagement and better business results.

NATIONAL’s energy communications consultants are well positioned to help Canada’s energy leaders develop and implement an effective safety communications program to ensure that a healthy safety culture mindset exists throughout your organization.