Empathy Over Compliance: Redefining Workplace Safety Culture

They come with the best intentions of making things better for the people that are doing the work . The other bucket is they are 100 , strictly solely concerned with compliance , making sure boxes are checked , and really don't have , or rather don't demonstrate , any interest at all for the human beings that they're reportedly supporting and keeping safe .

So this went back to just that little blip on the screen of time where I spent as a safety professional . So I had to take some training right , because I got this new fancy position , had a lot of responsibility . Here's a key point .

I was recruited for that position to help transform the culture , and the person who recruited me knew that I have an immense focus on human beings . And how do we make things better for the people that have to deal with the stuff or the people that are doing the stuff ? And so his concept , or his idea .

His focus was perfectly aligned with the way I prefer to operate . Now we both knew , because I'm a wacko and I don't have , or didn't at that time have , any formal safety training . Sure , I had my OSHA 30 and those kinds of things , but , like everybody has those right , I was granted national responsibility .

So I obviously I needed some additional training for that . So I go to this training and I can't remember it was three , four , maybe five days worth of training and what stood out to me . This is the first time I saw the difference and maybe one of the largest contributors to the problem .

The problem I'm talking about is the way some safety professionals , eh&s professionals do their job , and I just want to be ultra clear I do not support it .

I believe 100% that people in those positions are perfectly staged like , put in an ideal spot , to be an advocate for the people doing the work and make indeed make the work better for the people doing it . Anyhow , I'm in this class . It's me , a friend of mine and I made a connection there with some other gentlemen . There was about 20 of us in there .

It was really interesting as we were going through all the material me , my buddy and and my new buddy , the one I met there . We were asking questions and presenting ideas that made us look like the odd ducks . We were like everybody else in the room was like what the hell are y'all talking about ?

Almost like would y'all shut up and let us get to the meat and potatoes of the whole thing , except for the three of us . We were like , yeah , yeah , like I agree . What do you think about this ? Have you tried this ?

And now again , most of what the three of us were talking about maybe falls into the realm of leadership , or even servant leadership , and how do we approach a situation that's not clearly defined in a policy , and we also maybe know that the policy or the rules are not necessarily applicable in the particular situation .

And so we were having this type of conversation of how do we utilize the , we'll say , the standards , the OSHA standards , to better serve the people , which the instructor was phenomenal because he could . He helped us kind of navigate through that .

Of course , there was no direct answer , but he gave us a framework to use in terms of thinking of how to overcome that thing . Anyways , back to the rest of the team . So we didn't get invited to sit at the cool kids table right , because we were the odd ducks , we were the weirdos .

And so I'm really observing , like why is there such a distinct difference between the three odd ducks , me being one of them , and the rest of the crew that was there ? And they were all from different companies from different cities in that part of the country , and like they weren't all from one company .

It's like , okay , so they're not all from the same employer , but they share a lot of the same characteristics . And so I decided to like talk to them and understand , like why were they ? They were like the safety person for the construction companies that they were working for , and I must've asked six or seven of them like why they were in the safety role .

Like was it something that they went to university for ? Was it something that they were always interested in ? And of the seven that I asked , all of them said that their boss assigned them to the role , and I think that's a key thing . They were assigned to the role . I'm like , oh so it wasn't something necessarily that you were interested in .

No , they said that I was a good candidate for it and it was kind of a . I thought it was going to be a really great promotion . So I took it .

One guy had had a significant incident on site and the the idea , like it was a mutual agreement , in that the company said , hey , like you have a pretty interesting story and now your attitude about safety has dramatically changed , we would like you to take this position . He said yes , I want to , right , anyways .

But the rest were like no , they kind of made me do it . They didn't say it that way , but it's kind of how I interpreted it . Now , the consistency I saw in that group like the rest of the people , not the odd ducks , the regular normies was they were super , super compliant , focused . They just wanted to know what's the rule , what's the consequence ?

Where do I find the answer ? What do I do to make sure ? Like to punish people appropriately and make sure people comply ? They didn't use those words , but that was my interpretation of like the gist of their questions . They were just like black and white . What is it ? Yes or no ? Go , go , do not go . And then , of course , I kept thinking I'm like huh .

So these people are , these group , this group of people , awesome people are hyper , hyper , compliant , focused . Their only concern is to have the ability to discern whether somebody is doing it right or wrong and what to do when they're not doing it right , which that's important . Right , like that is a skill or maybe a core element in managing people .

But in terms of leading the safety culture for an organization , I don't think it's enough . But that's not their fault , right , like that's their mindset . That's the way they think , that's the way they operate . Not their fault , right , like that's their mindset . That's the way they think , that's the way they operate , which to me was maybe a little disappointing .

But shine the light on why we have such a big divide between the trade installers out there and the safety or compliance officers out there . And it's through no fault necessarily of the individuals . It comes back to the leader of the organization that selected the safety leader .

Like I , didn't do any study on this , so I'd love to get your thoughts in the comments or shoot me a DM or tell me I'm full of it what I interpreted that as is the leaders of those organizations that selected those guys that were in that class with me . They did not see safety as a core element of their culture .

They did not appreciate safety to be a core element of their business or the success of their business . They saw it more as a matter of compliance , more as a necessary evil , like they had to do it so they could comply with federal guidelines , so that they wouldn't get in trouble .

And so if that's the value or the level of appreciation they have for safety or the potential in a safety department or safety program , of course they're going to find somebody that is naturally compliant , that follows the rules , crosses the T's and dots the I's , and then that creates a lot of the situation that a lot of us out there have been dealing with ,

where I know for a very long time , like the safety person was the least cool person on the job site . Right , they were the tattletale , they were the narc . They would come and tell me what I was doing wrong but could never help me figure out how to do it right . They always came after the fact .

They were never involved on the front end of things , and the closest they got to being involved in the front end was giving me some damn checklist to fill out and a bunch of other damn paperwork . That didn't help me make the job safer . All it did was help them cover their butt in case something happened .

Going back to my boss , the one who picked me in picked those other two guys . Their bosses picked them for particular reasons . I think that I know for sure the guy who picked me for the role understood safety from a different perspective .

He saw that a good , sound safety program that served their people , produced business results and met the national or federal requirements and insurance liability issues and all of that it wasn't . It was a yes and situation in terms of we want to provide a different experience for our people and for all the people that come to our project .

By different we mean how does the program serve the human beings ? What that was going to require is some radical maybe yeah , we'll say radical some radical thinking in terms of doing it differently . And so maybe , on one hand , what I'm saying is those hyper-compliant , focused , dictator-type safety professionals out there .

It's not entirely their fault that they're that way , because I've also been involved in some incident investigations which are not fun , like they're .

Probably one of the worst experiences I've had in my career in construction is doing an incident investigation and all the bureaucracy , all the technicalities , all the liability stuff that you got to get into and check and make sure that you're covered and you're not saying the wrong thing and people are okay . And did somebody die ? Did somebody get hurt ?

But I also have these corporate things I need to do , like there's a lot of conflicting things that happen during an incident investigation and safety professionals . They always get pulled into those things and they're just the worst , they're just bad . There's no fun at all .

Maybe there's some learning , but it's very stressful , intense learning , so that'll sour anybody's mood . Back to the point . If you're in a situation on a job side or with a company that is hyper , hyper focused on compliance and only compliance , you're going to see that firsthand by the safety professional that you're dealing with .

You're going to see that firsthand by the safety professional that you're dealing with . And maybe the challenge is this to like keep an open mind , because not all safety professionals function that way and that's usually a result of their leader and what their leader values or understands a good safety program to be .

And that leader can go all the way to the CEO . Right , in my little wishy-washy analysis it was it all absolutely went back to the CEO . Ceo decided to put these people in these roles because the only value they saw in it was compliance .

And so when you have those safety professionals , those EH&S pros , that do listen and do try like , invest time and effort into making the work better or understanding the situation and help design this , mitigate all the as much risk as possible and design the safest ways to execute the work , show them some appreciation .

And I also have an ask I know this was a little convoluted but I don't know if what I'm saying like it was just a little sliver . Of maybe 18 different people , three were the odd ducks , right , they were real , people-focused , service-oriented . How do we make this program serve our people and meet the expectations or the federal requirements ?

And then the rest of them were very compliant , compliant , compliant . Thou shall not , thou shall not

.

So maybe you can help me , like , let me know how many of the safety professionals that you have worked with are people focused , how many of them are proactive in terms of being involved in evaluating the way high risk work is going to be executed and contributes to making it less risky , versus the number of safety professionals that come and just tell you what

you're doing wrong and offer no solutions or countermeasures to approach that work differently . I'm going to say we're still looking at a maybe 80-20 , 80 on the compliance , 20 on the people focus . But maybe you can help me figure that out Again .

When you find one out there that is people-centered and takes action and steps to serve the people that are doing the work , give them a fist bump , tell them thank you . And when you come into the ones that are ultra , ultra compliance , fill out your paperwork , check the boxes , give them some grace because they're not doing it to be ugly .

There's the conditions that are in are just make setting them up to really not have a lot of friends . Be kind to yourself , be cool and we'll talk at you next time . Peace .