Page 64 - OHS, November/December 2020

BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIES
BY ROBERT PATER
Skills Are Safety’s True Bottom Line
In this environment, seeing and then adjusting to limitations, weaknesses Cand blockages is critical to leadership and safety performance.
onsider this often-overlooked key to success: realizing In our work over three decades, that things will never go exactly as conceived. we’ve seen that acquiring real, practical, This means not letting yourself become startled or usable safety skills strengthens “will.” blindsided when things deviate from the intended path. Successfully fulfilling a task is actually
Seeing and then adjusting to limitations, weaknesses and blockages is critical to leadership and safety performance. After all, aren’t we all now working in circumstances that we likely never envisioned?
One tangible way safety leaders can “think anew” is shifting from limited past approaches. In particular, on the human side of safety, I’ve frequently seen how traditional organizational efforts have overly focused on externally emphasizing “will” over “skills.” Expending a large portion of time and resources attempting to motivate people to be safe, as if a primary obstacle is workers’ lack of interest, desire or awareness in protecting themselves.
In PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2020 Annual Global CEO Survey, CEO Bob Moritz proclaimed, “To upskill or not to upskill is no longer the question. Upskilling is always mentioned as desirable by CEO’s but most companies haven’t done a good job of this. The companies that do are much more confident about their ability to take control of their own future. Organizations will have to grow their own future workforce.”
Here are three strategies for high-grading skills-based safety:
Motivate, but don’t assume “will” is enough to get a job done safely. There’s way too much emphasis on “wanting it badly enough.” The ultimate purpose of motivation (like commitment to acting safely, avoiding slipshod methods or high-risk-low-return shortcuts) is to direct attention towards learning, then applying the right skills to accomplish tasks safely and efficiently.
Yet so much of safety communications and programming seems predominantly based on carrot-and-stick motivation. On the “carrot” side:
■ Pleading. “Do this so bad things don’t happen to you”
■ Reasoning. “...so that you’ll be able to leave work in the same condition as when you came in.”
■ Dreaming. “...so you’ll be able to retire in one piece.”
These positive motivational approaches can also include incentives, which can range from bingo to rewards to dinners.
Then there’s the “stick” side—all of which are kinds of threats:
■ “... or else you’ll be written up.”
■ “...be forced to take days off (without pay).”
■ “... so you don’t make us look bad.”
While these approaches might seem to differ in form, they all have one thing in common: the assumption that safer decisions and actions are mostly based on people “wanting” to be safe. Underlying that is the belief that workers already know how and what to do but lack the desire—or energy—to complete tasks safely. So, safety leaders just have to somehow coerce workers to exert their will to act in desired ways. And, of course, that it’s possible to insert desire for safety into others by just repeating commands or offerings or thoughts long and perhaps loud enough. Further, I’ve seen that some of the smartest, savviest, most experienced safety professionals aren’t immune from the “rah-rah” approach to changing others actions.
58 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
one of the best internal motivators there is.
Be sure to upgrade mental
skillsets as well. Too many equate
“skills” with increasing physical
abilities. These are critical, of course,
but don’t cover equally important
mental skillsets. Mental skills can
be acquired, trained and enhanced
through rehearsal and practice in
the same way that the right physical
exercise practiced the best ways
develops muscles, balance and
coordination. Courtesy of change
master Ron Bowles, here are a few mental skills employees can develop to help them better protect their own safety:
■ Directing Attention. Focused attention is a trainable mental skill. Through practice, almost all people can learn to direct and then change attention towards where it will be most helpful.
■ Assessing and evaluating. Participating in problem-solving activities can improve mental skills for retrieving and evaluating options. This is critical preparation when deciding how to proceed when situations change or when performing non-routine tasks.
■ Developing safety decision-making skills and methodologies. These include mental rehearsal and hazard recognition, such as having workers visualize where their hands will move during a task to significantly reduce hand injuries.
■ Examining how mental skills integrate and lead physical skills necessary to get tasks done safely. Follow the ultimate five- step skills development process.
1. People have to want to improve/see the need.
2. They have to believe it’s actually possible for them to get better (not just an abstract thought, not that improvement is more likely to happen for others.)
3. They have to know what to do. This has to be tangible, practical, doable in real-life conditions and learnable in bite-sized parts.
4. They have to practice. Please don’t get sucked into the “show them the video once and expect them to do it” trap. One-shot anything is unlikely to result in ongoing improvements that really require steadily ramping up skills.
5. Newly-acquired skills are set/reinforced, ideally by them. Again, one-and-done really results in “and done”, rather than the accruing enhancements.
During these times of considerable and even unique challenges, sorting out and improving skills is critical for moving towards higher-level safety and leadership on all levels.
Robert Pater is the Creator and Managing Director of MoveSMART. www.ohsonline.com
The ultimate purpose of motivation (like commitment to act- ing safely, avoiding slipshod methods or high-risk-low-return shortcuts) is to direct attention towards learning, then ap- plying the right skills to accomplish tasks safely and efficiently.