How do we improve safety management in organisations so that it is supportive for all members of staff? SHP hears from Tony Roscoe, Director at Implexis Consulting on the issues and solution…
Tony Roscoe, Director at Implexis
I have many soap-boxes and the one that I have to get out most often and stand on is my loathing of the “Pass-the-Buck Improvement Game”. By this is I mean the systems that organisations set up in order to have staff make improvements, which involve identifying an issue (most often a hazard or a near-miss), completing a form and passing those issues on to management to solve.
You could argue that at least the issue has been highlighted, however there are some major flaws with this approach.
Flaw 1: Overwhelming management
I was once contacted by a client who had moved roles and he was in a bit of a panic. He had within his new company instigated a hazard reporting process and he now had a list of over 500 issues that he had to fix, he simply did not know where to start.
This is far too common and my response to him was “why are you trying to fix them all?” i.e. why are the staff not involved?
Flaw 2: Managers often do not complete the task, are not the experts and will not necessarily come up with the right solutions
Many line managers and Health & Safety professionals have never done the role of the front-line staff that they are managing, and even when they have, that may have been some time ago. Therefore, are they the best people to come up with solutions?
Flaw 3: The latency effect
Due to the length of the list, by the time management get around to fixing the issue, enough time has passed for the staff to think that it has been forgotten. This is called latency. If you knock on someone’s door and they answer it a week later, do you see these two things as linked?
Flaw 4: Removing the sense of achievement
For me, this is the biggest issue. When we remove people’s opportunity to be involved in solutions, we also take away their sense of achievement and the feeling that they are listened to and that their opinion is valued. We know from research that this can affect people’s mental health and their performance.
Flaw 5: Targets
Due to the latency effect and the not-invented here syndrome, people will often stop engaging with the process. This can cause the number of reports to drop off dramatically, the result of which is a worried board and the response is often to target staff. This shifts the focus of reporting from talking issues to completing paperwork and when that happens people make things up just to complete paperwork.
Flaw 6: The game
The final major flaw is the game play that can become involved. This can take three forms, firstly, people will report silly things just to see if anyone is reading them. One example I have seen is a member of staff reporting that an aeroplane was slightly lower than usual. The second is reporting issues that the staff know that their manager cannot fix, but seeing them fail becomes part of the fun. Finally, it simply becomes a simple way to pass-the-buck to managers for them to fix the issues.
When you take control away from people, they find highly creative ways to take control back.
The solution
There are a number of ways in which to get staff involved in improvements and we at Implexis Consulting have created a number of tools, but the main thing is that the system becomes a filtration process, with three “filters”;
1. What can they fix themselves?
2. What can they fix with the help of their team?
3. What can they fix with technical help (electrical, mechanical etc.)?
Only after an issue has gone through these three filters should it then be escalated to management, making the managers list far more manageable.
The items on the managers list will often be longer-term issues and making them visible, with regular updates is key.
Three main takeaways
1. We need to move away from teaching people that their responsibility when it comes to health and safety is to complete a record, put it in a box and they are done! This is not good for the organisation, managers or staff and what happens if a report is lost in the shuffle and leads to an incident?
2. Targeting inputs (i.e., how many pieces of paper people fill in) shifts the focus on to paperwork and off of improvements.
3. Taking away peoples control only leads to them finding creative ways to take control back.
In my world of workplace drug testing, I see at first hand many of the issues Tony refers to.
An attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell” which continues until some drug related tragedy occurs.
The post event review results in what I call “latent whistle-blowers” all letting management know that the “problem” was well known to other employees.