Opportunity Teaching. Every day, events in the world give us the opportunity to teach a safety concept or principle. When you pay attention to the news and social media you will be able to capture subjects your employees are actually thinking about; therefore, your message is more likely to be remembered.

More than 24 years ago when I began speaking to audiences about safety, this was the title of my presentation. I was reminded of it when I was being interviewed by Dave Johnson with ISHN www.ishn.com.

Providing a published document that states the organization’s values is a common business practice for many companies. This values document, in turn, should lead to strategies that help establish a culture that lives and delivers these values. Many times, employee safety is a stated value. 

GreenWood, Inc., an integrated maintenance, operations and construction solutions provider, recently celebrated 3 million safe hours at their West Virginia Operations (WVO) project based in South Charleston, West Virginia. The major safety milestone was reached after twelve years of continuous operations without a lost time event supporting multiple clients in the chemical and petro-chemical industries.

Acting ethically requires constant vigilance.  One slip-up can have serious, long-term consequences. A recent news report demonstrates the importance of a strong defense when it comes to acting ethically.

Many private and public organizations publicize significant accomplishment of downstream safety measures, such as the reduction of injury rates. I am not fond of this recognition, but I do acknowledge that celebrating “an adequate number of injuries” seems to be a current weakness of our profession.

Whether you work in Aviation, Mining or the Zoo Industry, the EHS Department is often caught in the middle between the C-Suite and everybody else in the company.

The biggest thing preventing our safety cultures, performance and progress is the mindset of our leaders. Safety will never trickle up in an organization, never!