Safety programs needs hearts and minds to succeed

One of the most difficult things about creating a strong safety culture is engaging the hearts and minds of everyone in your organisation to take ownership of safety – regardless of their title or job function.

Even with excellent systems and processes and an understanding your legal obligations – as behavioural specialists – we know if people really don’t perceive their actions could cause harm, changing their behaviour is very hard.

In addition to great systems and processes, whether in the Learning and Development area or Safety, you need to focus on 4 areas to shift safety culture, or implement any change process. These are 4 vital areas that underpin any attempt to shift behaviour.

They are:

Without your organisation having these 4 areas working together to engage the hearts and minds of supervisors, managers and leaders – they will say the same thing over and over, and incidents will keep repeating over and over. Neglecting any of those 4 areas is at best case, a recipe for frustration and fear – and in the worst case could lead to injuries and potential fatalities.

Think about the statements below – are they being driven by Values, Beliefs, Mindset or Attitude?

• It won’t happen to me?
• It will be quicker to do it this way?
• I will get in trouble if I stop
• I’ve always done it this way
• Wrap me in bubble wrap why don’t you
• Someone else will handle what I just saw
• Phew! close call but we got there

It’s almost guaranteed that if you have put all the tools and systems in place and you’re not getting improvements in your safety/ leadership culture or safety statistics – then it’s a failure for your organisation to engage Values + Beliefs + Mindset + Attitude.

There is also one more critical factor that supports this – role modelling.
If as a leader, you don’t embody the attributes that you want to see in your people and ˜walk the talk’ – changing others is impossible.

Thankfully shifting VBMA’s, (and therefore Hearts and Minds) doesn’t have to be difficult – it can be done en-masse with a well-structured training program.

It is because of this understanding we work with leaders on the Hearts and Minds before cascading any safety leadership program throughout an organisation.

To find out more about a bespoke Hearts and Minds program tailored to your organisation’s challenges and potential click contact us here.