Talking Health, Safety and Wellbeing

Building an Empowering Culture in a Post-COVID World

Tim Marsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000473957
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Arbeits- & industrielle Beziehungen

The book considers what makes an excellent face-to-face health and safety contact in the workplace, and why these contacts are a fundamental building block of any strong, caring, and empowering workplace culture. It stresses the vital importance of inquiry, empathy, and analysis in understanding what employees need to mitigate risk factors around safety and mental health.

This revised and updated edition includes empowering methodologies that directly address mental health and well-being issues and the challenges organisations face in a post COVID19 era. The reader will gain an understanding of the day-to-day mechanisms of why "culture is king" and how everyone contributes every-day to this truism. This book covers how interactions regarding leadership and teamwork directly lead to the amount of human error and fallibility an organisation can expect to need to manage, and how taking proactive, analytical, and empowering approaches to safety and health is key to identifying and mitigating risks.

Talking Health, Safety and Wellbeing explains why it is so important to talk about health and safety issues proactively. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this book is an ideal read for any frontline supervisor, HR manager, mental health first aider, safety rep, or company director.

APPENDIX 1

Final checklist

The following questions are provided as a simple reminder of the key points. If you are able to answer yes to the majority of them after a safety conversation, then I guarantee you’ll have laid another brick in the wall of a strong safety culture.

• Were you able to get the person talking to you in a reasonably relaxed and natural way?
• Did it remain professional and focused, and not overly informal or ‘matey’?
• Did you ask ‘why’ curiously about any issues seen or raised?
• Did you proactively ask, ‘Anything slow, uncomfortable or inconvenient?’ about doing the job safely?
• Did you ask, ‘What do you need to be safe and healthy?’
• Did you top and tail with ‘How are you?’ (largely rhetorical) and ‘How are you?’ questions?
• Were you able to praise something you saw? Or did praise come naturally because you used a method such as the ‘rate yourself one to ten’ approach?
• Did you use a questioning coaching technique to get them to be the one to come up with the answer, and to consider ‘what if?’ situations?
• Were any promises made to you inclusive of the ‘I’ word, whilst looking you in the eye, and just after you promised to do something for them?
• Were any actions agreed upon SMART?
• Finally, do you agree that whether we’re talking about following up SMART actions delegated, actions you’ve committed to yourself, or just getting out and undertaking a safety talk at all, RUDE NIKE RULES ALWAYS APPLY?

APPENDIX 2

Suggested basic seven-items checklist

1. How do you rate your supervisor’s ‘care’ for your welfare?
   • 5 Often asks after my wellbeing, and certainly would if I looked down or a bit stressed and manic.
   • 4
   • 3 Would ask if I was acting unusually flat or manic.
   • 2
   • 1 Would never ask, no matter what!
2. How do you rate your supervisor’s praise and feedback?
   • 5 Often praises routine safe behaviour.
   • 4
   • 3 Rarely praises safe behaviour/praises only exceptional behaviour.
   • 2
   • 1 Never praises safe behaviour.
3. How often does your supervisor coach rather than tell?
   • 5 Coaches by drawing out knowledge and options, whenever feasible.
   • 4
   • 3 Sometimes coaches by using questions rather than telling.
   • 2
   • 1 Never uses questioning or coaching techniques.
4. How often does your supervisor lead by example in a positive way?
   • 5 Always leads by example positively.
   • 4
   • 3 Usually leads by example positively
   • 2
   • 1 Sometimes leads by example positively.
5. How often does your supervisor involve and empower?
   • 5 Involves and empowers in design and decision-making whenever viable.
   • 4
   • 3 Has involved and empowered, but also frequently misses chances to do so.
   • 2
   • 1 Rarely, if ever, involves the workforce in design and decision-making.
6. How well does your supervisor use incidents to learn about improvement opportunities?
   • 5 Always asks ‘curious why’ and ‘what do you need?’, and often asks ‘anything slow or uncomfortable?’ questions.
   • 4
   • 3 Often asks ‘curious why’ and ‘what do you need?’ questions, and sometimes asks ‘anything slow or uncomfortable?’ questions.
   • 2
   • 1 Rarely asks ‘why’ curiously. Almost never asks ‘what do you need?’ or ‘anything inconvenient?’ questions.
7. How well does your supervisor follow up and close out safety actions?
   • 5 Always follows up and ensures close-out, or communicates the reasons for any delay.
   • 4
   • 3 Quite good at following up and closing out safety and health related actions.
   • 2
   • 1 Poor at following up and closing out actions.

This basic list could, of course, be several times longer and more precisely behaviourally anchored. However, even with something this simple, if you systemically follow up these items so that an average score of, for example, 3.1 can be turned into a score of just 3.8, that will, most definitely, reflect a transformation in your safety culture.

Further reading

• Broadbent, David. (2007) ‘What Kind of Safety Leader are You?’ Paper presented at the National Health and Safety Conference, Auckland, New Zealand.
• Coyle, Daniel. (2018) The Culture Code. London: Random House Business.
• Daniels, A. and Agnew, J. (2010) Safe by Accident? Atlanta: Performance Management Publications.
• Dekker, S. (2008) The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Dweck, Carol. (2017) Mindset. New York: Robinson.
• Edmondson, Amy. (2019) The Fearless Organisation. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Geller, E.S. (2001) The Psychology of Safety Handbook. Florida: CRC Press.
• Goldstein, N.J., Martin, S.J. and Cialdini, R.B. (2007) Yes! 50 Secrets of Persuasion. London: Profile Books.
• Heinrich, H.W. (1959) Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach (4th edn). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Hopkins, A. (2008) Failure to Learn. Sydney: CCH Australia.
• Lencioni, Patrick. (2016) The Ideal Team Player. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey Bass.
• Mandela, N. (1994) Long Walk to Freedom. London: Abacus.
• Reason, J. (1997) Managing the Risks of Organisational Accidents. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Reason, J. (2008) The Human Contribution. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Syed, Matthew. (2011) Bounce. London: Fourth Estate.
• Syed, Matthew. (2015) Black Box Thinking. London: John Murray.
• Thaler, R.H. and Sunstein, C.R. (2009) Nudge. London: Penguin.
• Vroom, V. (1992) Management and Motivation. London: Penguin.
• Walker, Sam. (2017) The Captain Class. London: Ebury Press.

If you find the material in this book of interest can I recommend the following readable books – for a long journey or perhaps as the ‘one non-fiction one’ to be taken on holiday! None are directly referenced in the text but were in mind every time I mentioned ‘unintended consequences’ or ‘why people do what they do’! (It’s worth noting that the books by Lencioni, Syed, and Walker listed above are written to be read widely.)

• Berne, E. (1964) Games People Play (Transactional Analysis). London: Penguin.
• Brown, D. (2007) Tricks of the Mind. London: 4 Books.
• Gladwell, M. (2002) The Tipping Point. London: Penguin.
• Gladwell, M. (2005) Blink. London: Penguin.
• Hallinan, J.T. (2009) Why We Make Mistakes. New York: Broadway Books.
• Levitt, S. and Du...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• About the author
• Preface
• Two stories and a case study by way of introduction
• Introduction
• Section One A little theory
• Section Two Safety & health contacts
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Final checklist
• Appendix 2: Suggested basic seven-items checklist
• Further reading
• Index