Creating A Culture Of Accountability For Safety

One memorable consulting project was a manufacturing plant that was struggling to achieve the safety goal of “zero accidents.” We began the meeting with the extended management team with a discussion of the plant’s safety goals. We asked the question: “who is accountable for safety?” In answer, almost every hand in the room went up, but not in an effort to take personal responsibility. Instead, the hands were all raised to point to the finger to one particular manager, Brad, who was sitting quietly in the corner of the room. Brad forced a smile and then sheepishly raised his hand. “I am accountable for safety,” he said. Of course, that was the problem—no one, other than Brad, the Safety Manager, was taking accountability for creating and maintaining a safe work environment. To be successful, the Safety Manager was expected to be everywhere, all the time, ensuring that proper protocols were implemented, procedures were followed, and people were smart about their work; of course, that would be impossible.

Not long ago, Chevron acknowledged that it is impossible to create accountability for safety without getting everyone to make it a part of their job. And that’s exactly why Chevron now gives every employee, not just those at the top, “stop-work” authority. Anyone in the plant—front-line workers, contractors, and even onsite vendors—can take accountability for stopping unsafe work or identifying an unsafe working condition. The impact? Safety has improved dramatically within the Chevron organization.

Creating a safe work environment, like any other enterprise-wide initiative, can only be assured when everyone, in every job, takes ownership and accountability for making the workplace safe. Creating a Culture of Accountability^® for safety was the focus of the work with the manufacturing plant we spoke about in our opening example. Several months after beginning the project, we asked the plant management team the question again, “who’s accountable for safety?” Every hand went up again, but this time as an acknowledgment of their personal accountability for safety. No one was pointing to Brad; they were all pointing to themselves. Daily safety meetings were held each morning to discuss how teams throughout the plant could ensure workplace safety during the day’s planned activities and events and became the nerve-center of the effort. These daily meetings were also used to gather suggestions on what else could be done to ensure safety. The result was a deluge of ideas on how to solve safety issues and problems that had gone unnoticed or ignored for years. Creating a Culture of Accountability for safety requires engaging everyone, in every job, to “Own It^®” as though they were the safety manager and is achieved when you help people take the Steps To Accountability^® and operate Above The Line^® with regard to safety in the work environment.

To learn more about how to create greater accountability for enterprise-wide initiatives such as safety, customer satisfaction, taking costs out of the process, quality, change initiatives, hitting sales objectives, and any other process that optimizes organizational performance, visit our website at www.partnersinleadership.com.