Supervisor Leadership Skills for a Safe Workplace

Safety culture means the values, beliefs and attitudes employees share in relation to safety.  It is also determined by the commitment, but also both the leadership and communication styles, of management.

Let's take a look at the workplace culture model for high performance companies.  It's all about all leaders throughout the company balancing three factors for optimal performance.  Thees are unity, compassionate leadership and communication.  Balance these correctly and you hit trust - the sweet spot for high performance companies.

Unity

High performing companies are unified and have every-one working together as a team.  There is no "Us versus Them" mentality.

Humans have an instinctive desire to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Staff want to be part of a group and a successful one that's going somewhere.

It's important that you cultivate a sense of group identity.  Use inclusive language.

Encourage teamwork that works towards achieving your safety goals.

Also important is to ensure that everyone realises that they are all accountable for safety.  Not just the safety manager. 

Compassionate Leadership

We all need to feel loved and appreciated. 

It's important that companies convey this to staff.

Not just through words, but through the right actions.

Staff and even visitors, will look for visible signs at your workplace that staff are highly valued to the organisation.

By ensuring a tidy work environment, leaders ensure that subtle messages are given that only safe behaviours are tolerated.

Communication

This is where senior management reinforce the importance of unity and how important staff are to the company.

Regular, open, clear and authentic communication, is needed, through a variety of methods (email, video, face to face, print), that is driven from the top of the organisation, but is reinforced at all levels.

People love transparency and no hypocrisy.

Make sure any communication is followed up by action and avoid any ambiguity in messages.

For example: A CEO speech saying that the company will increase profitability by cutting back on safety related expenses conflicts with saying that staff safety is a priority.

Trust

If you get all these three inter-related core areas, right you get Trust - the secret sauce to high performing companies.

Staff feel safe at their workplace and will do whatever it takes to make the company (or their group) happy.

They also have a high level of camaraderie, positivity and respect for fellow workmates.

After all, when you trust, you feel safe, which is the optimum goal for a high performing culture.

Before we go into the skills required to connect and collaborate with your staff, let's look at the research behind what actually makes a high performance team.

Marcial Losada, a psychologist, researched 60 work teams. He found there were 3 types: high performance, mixed and low performance teams that he categorised according to customer satisfaction, profitability and peer evaluation scores.

His research found high performance teams actually performed remarkably differently to the other teams.

High performing teams had:

• High connectivity (which means they were responsive to one another),

• Asked questions as much as they defended their own views.

• Casted their attention outward, as much as inward (which means they were interested in other people╒s viewpoints, as well as their own).

• Were flexible & resilient.

• They had a high positive comment ratio of 6:1.

On the other hand, low & mixed performance teams crumbled under pressure & asked few questions.

Negative comments were made at the same ratio as positive comments for low performing teams, (1:1), while for mixed performance teams there were slightly more positive comments than negative (2:1).

Similarly, research undertaken by Keith Ferrazzi found that workplaces that have high candour have better business performance.

High candour workplaces - staff speak honestly about the risks involved at all levels of the company.

Low candour workplaces -  signify a highly politicized workplace where people do what they're told and do not question anything. Slow to make decisions.

While in research "The New Science of Building Great Teams" by Alex Pentland, Harvard Business Review, April 2012, found that there are three factors that contribute to a great team:

1. Energy - Staff members contribute well to the team,

2. Engagement - Team members communicate well with each other, and

3. Exploration - Team members continue finding our more information and creating solutions outside of meetings.

What we know about great safety performance is:

Regular, open communication and consultation about safety is a proven way to reduce injuries and workplace accidents.

Gratitude

When to Use

• Poor morale
• Staff feel unappreciated
• Need to make big cultural changes
• Negative, complaining environment and want to make it more positive & uplifting.
• Staff aren't collaborating and are critical of others.

When to Use:

• When staff are not accountable for safety
• If staff aren't speaking up in meetings.
• If you want staff to act smarter at work.
• To increase workplace happiness, autonomy and feelings of control.

Extra Resources

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman,

Being a Supervisor means having to deal with complaints.

As you remember, great supervisors encourage open communication, whereby employees can freely raise safety concerns. This results in fewer accidents.

Supervisors need to make themselves available and open to complaints.

When to Use

When staff:

• Aren't coming up with safety ideas
• Are disinterested in safety
• Appear to not be doing any thinking
• Are refusing to be accountable for safety.
• Have a difficult safety issue, that no-one knows what to do.

Great supervisors have the skills to facilitate open and equal communication with both levels.

This means that if a senior manager wants to introduce a new initiative, they need to get your acceptance.

When to Use

When staff:

• Are undertaking safety procedures incorrectly.
• Are disinterested in safety.
• Are putting the safety of other people at risk.

Extra Resources

Conversations for Change , by Shawn Kent Hayashi

Human beings can be remarkably biased. Men can often unwittingly have a bias towards women at work even when they think they agree with feminist principles.

In this module, you'll learn some easy tips to ensure the smooth running of your toolbox talk meeting.

Why you need a Toolbox Template

****Before you begin this session, make sure you have downloaded and printed your Toolbox Template from the supplementary materials.  Refer to the template as you do this training session ****

To help you remember your new skills, I've put together further articles, a recommended reading list and video content to help reinforce what you have learnt today. Visit: http://www.digicast.com.au/resources-supervisors  and fill out your details.

Extra Resources

Transform Your Safety Communication by Marie-Claire Ross

https://www.marie-claireross.com/transform_your_safety_communication

Trusted to Thrive: How Leaders Create Connected and Accountable Workplaces by Marie-Claire Ross

https://www.marie-claireross.com/trusted-to-thrive

If you liked this training, please give it a positive review.

Thanks for you time and good luck with improving your workplace!

Free Checklist: 18 Supervisor Behaviours that Produce a Thriving Culture

Thisis a really comprehensive checklist to ensure you recruit the right supervisors and train on the right behaviours to improve your safety culture.

Also, a great tool to assess yourself.   

https://www.marie-claireross.com/supervisor_checklist

3 Factors that Influence Workplace Culture - This is another popular download.  It explains three building blocks for creating a high performance culture.