Ingenuity-Winter-2017

Pond Ingenuity Winter 2017 15 work expectations: for safety behavior to become a goal of each employee, positive actions must be recognized and communicated in a positive manner. Organization The third step in pre-work planning is identifying an organizational structure and selecting team members who possess confidence, a positive attitude and feel empowered to make day-to-day decisions. Each team position requires the skills, the talents and the type of personality ideal for maximizing the team’s capabilities. A large number of skills may be required to complete tasks and may include the following: „ „ Strategy - Activities designed to mobilize resources toward desired outcomes. „ „ Structure - Formal relationships, roles, and responsibilities needed to organize and accomplish work. „ „ Systems - Process, or set of processes, that links and orders activities to enable work to be done and goals to be achieved. „ „ Systems Thinking - Includes strengths of character and capacity, knowledge, understanding, judgment, and skills required to accomplish a task. „ „ Leadership - The manner in which a leader uses his or her strengths, talents, values, knowledge, judgment, and attitudes to lead others toward desired organizational outcomes. „ „ Customers - Interests need to be considered and aligned with all organizational activities. „ „ Values - Essential characteristics or attributes promoted by the organization to motivate the behavior of all members of the organization. Each position in the organizational structure has defined responsibilities with respect to production, quality, and health and safety. The most important aspect of EE is that each employee, regardless of his/her position on the organizational chart, has the unquestioned ability and duty to stop any job or activity that poses an imminent threat to human health or the environment. Every employee must be allowed to exercise that ability without fear of reprisal. Every stop-work action should be documented, and the associated lessons learned shared with all others engaged in similar tasks. Vision Elements and Expected Outcomes Effective leadership supported by engaged and empowered employees who are providedwith a long-term, forward-thinking vision is critical to overall performance and the prevention of industrial incidents and accidents. The short- and long-term vision should incorporate all management objectives and be communicated to the teams who are expected to make vision a reality and complete the overall mission. Vision elements should incorporate the organization’s core values and provide for a framework that empowers employees to make decisions that will enhance operations and eliminate hazardous conditions. Vision elements should also consider future resources that are strategic to executing the vision. Employees often work together for many long hours. The work may be so intense that at times employees spend more time with each other than with friends and family. Such periods of intense work often trigger a sense of “communal relationship” in which employees begin to understand and know each other’s likes, dislikes, “pet peeves,” and other personal traits. Communal relationships are where EE is most effective andmost rewarding. Taking personal responsibility for each other’s actions in the workplace results in positive team-member relationships. Care must be taken, however, to teach teams that direction must be constructive, it must be delivered in a positive manner, and it must not be punitive. Positive actions toward health and safety implementation are expected to become second nature. Even when two employees are not friends, the resulting interdependent culture developed from communal behavior traits will, for the most part, supersede any negatives, and result in a positive attitude. When organizations achieve the level of health and safety success that include the evolution of an interdependent culture in which all employees take personal responsibility for the actions of their selves and each other, a world-class perpetual culture of safety begin to emerge, and can be sustained throughout all aspects of the work environment. Conclusion Focusing on proactive safety actions, encouraging relationship development, mandating individual accountability, and reinforcing overall team commitment are the building blocks for the evolution of a sustainable workplace culture of safety interdependence. Each of these elements fosters the development of a workplace environment where employees at all levels take responsibility for health and safety, which ultimately becomes second nature. When a proactive and interdependent culture of safety is established, injury prevention and elimination becomes an operational reality, and significantly contributes to the success of the organization and all associated stakeholders. James E. Davis, CSP, PG, F. SAME, Corporate Health and Safety Director