Safety is a management responsibility? Is it obvious in your company?
Under law, employers have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace. Key employer responsibilities are to provide a workplace free from serious to recognize hazards and to comply with standards, rules and regulations.
For years, safety managers have been saying that management must play the major role to ensure the success of safety programs. Many studies demonstrated that companies with the lowest lost-time injury rates were those with the highest level of management commitment and employee involvement
We can consider different roles and missions to reach safety excellence:
- Executive management such as presidents, CEO, VP,..;
- Operational managers
- Operators or workers
- Safety manager, safety expert and personnel
Executive and operation managers must lead with exemplarity, show enthusiasm, support safety manager. They are the final decision-makers.
Before anything else, they must make the difference between an employee and a person. One basic question is: “In such working situation, do you put your kids in this working environment? Care must be the key word for manager.
Manager must be aware how their own behavior can be a positive or a negative influence for all workers. They are contributing to better or worst employee engagement.
Safety manager is a support function. They must support workers, managers with programs, procedures, rules, guidelines but Safety programs alone do not work.
Finally, operation and workers are those directly involved in the day-to-day work of the company and they must be part of safety with safe behavior. It must be the norm. They believe in the just and fair policy, develop transparency and are not afraid to stop operation. They understand that incidents and events are opportunities for learning. They are acting in return of experience.
However, they must believe in the management because they will be considered a person with respect, care, attention, kindness, consideration to their lives.
