Some basic practices in management strategies may tackle unsatisfactory practise, yet real excellence in safety requires strategy. Safety strategy that is effective needs to start from knowledge of the formulas for workforce performance. Before we begin looking at the formulas and skills needed to reach excellence, let’s take a look at what excellence is.
Excellence is not just a momentary raise in performance, but the ability to second that peak time after time. It is not accidental and it acquired through deliberate action. It is the application and endless advance of a strategy in safety that accomplishes and measures its own improvement. Nonetheless, most companies do not really have a safety strategy that leads and also joins the countless safety efforts into a consistent whole. Not many companies effectively measure their safety performance in a way that permits for an insightful understanding of what is working and the power to match it in the future. Excellence in safety at the company level needs safety excellence at the employee level. Managers must know the fundamental formulas for performance if they are to achieve this aim.
The leading formula for safety excellence is performance leads to ability times incentive (P=AI). Heaps of top management use the bulk of their assets to grow the skill set of their employees, rather than their incentive. They may be intent on a part of performance that already is respectable and hard to improve, and overlooking a part that is not as strong and effortlessly made better.
You don’t lead an organization to safety excellence simply by being an excellent leader; you do so by leading excellent people! You lead people to excellence by helping them improve both their ability and their motivation. Most safety leaders don’t realize or act on this important difference; People of mediocre skills need to improve their abilities. People of great ability need to be motivated.
Worker Participation
It’s been put forward that staff do not need to be motivated to stay safe, since they are the ones who would be hurt if they were unsafe. Therefore they have their own safety as motivation. While this is true, the company’s excellence is not just to do with staff looking out for themselves; it must be about all staff looking out for others too. You do not need to be driven to watch out for yourself, but if the company wishes its staff to surpass self interest, they must drive them to be so.
The next rule is I+P=M (inspiration plus participation yields motivation). This kind of motivation is not accomplished by the old carrot-and-stick methods of the past. It is accomplished by involving everyone in the rationale and benefits of safety excellence. It must answer the “what’s-in-it-for-me” (WIIFM) question in a way that inspires employees. This is motivation through a team-building exercise in which everyone is expected to go above and beyond his or her own self-interests. This is motivation based on a deep caring for both the team and the organization. Such motivation is based on the pride of winning the war against accidents and celebrating the victory. The two greatest human needs are affinity and affiliation (the need to believe in something and the need to belong to something), and safety excellence can be a meaningful part of fulfilling these two basic needs.
Motivation has to follow this involvement. Staff encourage and back what they have helped build. Not a lot of staff have a huge part in making their company’s safety strategy. Few managers allow for staff to be more participative, though many would like them to be so. Managers do not always see that participation is apart of delegation. If the manager completes all tasks, then there is nothing for staff to do. Allowing staff to help write safety strategies can feel like having no control for a lot of managers, which is a unpleasant feeling to many and basically unacceptable to some. Yet, it is an essential aspect of leading excellence.
Training & Allocating
The two key aspects of leadership are coaching and allocating (leadership equals delegating plus coaching). Those who fail to progress the talents of their workforce or hand out work will repress the development of their company. Coaching is the ability to help increase the performance of another person. True leaders always try to improve those they lead as they understand that leaders are weighed as much by their teams progress as they are by their own performance. Company development is directly reliant on the progress of each member of the organization. The collective performance of the company will improve as individual’s performances improve.
A huge part of this training is down to imperative coaching by the employers. If management are not skilled in the areas of health and safety, then it is unlikely that other staff members will be. It is the managers, supervisors and top management that have to encourage staff in setting standards in health and safety and setting those standards for them. Companies can set their standards through their own training such as through managing safely courses, accredited by IOSH (Institution of Occupational Health and Safety) and are created specifically for managers.
Delegating is how leaders create momentum and set out accountability. It also is how they amplify their own aptitude to get things done. If leaders could do all jobs themselves, the employees would be uncalled-for. Only by means of delegation can leaders further their career in the business and take on even more strategic tasks.
Safety and health must be a strategic part of company excellence. Leading employees by increasing their motivation and abilities is the main skill needed to attain excellence. After such progress with delegation then trust is the next step toward the finished product. Managers must know the critical standing of these steps and learn to let go of control or peers in their company will grow into the leadership positions. As companies start to be capable of excellent safety performances without the relentless interference from managers, the sustainability of excellence begins to take hold.
To get more information about managing safely and just how it can assist you in setting health and safety standards within your company, then please click here for iosh managing safely elearning
