Page 50 - OHS, July/August 2022

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Change Management
To ensure workers will use the new safety management software and follow new safety procedures, change management processes may need to be implemented. Change management with a clear strategy and purpose allows an organization to make changes that benefit the business. It involves a methodology and guidelines for moving the change forward. To develop the strategy, identify change characteristics, such as how many people will be impacted and what is the timeframe for the change. Your organization needs to be assessed, and then the strategy created.
Successful strategies include:
■ Who will be doing what during the change
■ Selecting a change project manager and team members to lead the change
■ Creating a sponsor coalition of leaders and managers who need to be actively involved in the change
■ Anticipating resistance by predict-
ing potential reactions to the change
■ Understanding the risk of the change There are a variety of change manage-
ment models that companies can follow. We like the John Kotter 8-Step Change Model, which involves:
■ Creating a sense of urgency ■ Building a coalition
■ Forming a strategic vision ■ Getting everyone’s buy-in
■ Removing barriers to enable action ■ Generating short-term wins
■ Sustaining acceleration
■ Instituting change
Whichever change management model you choose, make sure it is suitable for your business and the individual team members.
Building a Safety Culture
When COVID hit, many firms were unprepared for what to do next and how to keep workers safe. It helps to be forward-thinking and prepare for the inevitable. Communicate with your
team on what safety skills they lack and develop a process for easing their fears. Use toolbox talks to help team members be best prepared for an incident.
Empower team members to create safety processes and ensure they know how to advocate for themselves. A safety program can’t have safety procedures only made in the office. Business processes are made in the field, worked on in the office and go to the crews for approval. Get crews involved in developing the safety program as they will be more likely to feel like they matter.
For exceptional safety behavior above and beyond the usual high level of safety be- havior, make sure that the employee is rec- ognized in front of their peers. Public rec- ognition helps empower crew members to ask each other questions and become safety experts in their own way instead of relying onothersforsafetyinformation.
Gen Simmons is a technical product manager at HCSS.
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