It is a Matter of Respect

May 10, 2018 By Leave a Comment

respect others in the workplaceThe more people who are involved in thinking about, looking at and helping each other, the more likely that the organization’s safety performance will be outstanding. A key to having the people come together as partners in helping each other begins with respect. I think that most of us want to be treated respectfully and feel valued by each other; I know that I do. We all have jobs to do and our work quality and productivity need to be as good as we can do. We each need to be held to high standards and keep learning and growing in our knowledge and understanding. We can achieve this while treating each other respectfully, honestly sharing our knowledge and insights, asking for help when we need it, and giving a helping hand.

This idea of respect applies to everyone in the organization. None of us has a right to abuse, harass, or bully anyone. Some people may feel that when they are responsible for getting things done, that they have a right to be abusive and push people. The pressures of the work can push any of us to the levels of frustration that we can experience under pressure. But we need to control ourselves, never forgetting that respect is a key for achieving high performance.

When we have an environment where people treat each other with respect, the levels of trust will improve. When the trust levels are positive and strong, people are more willing to open up and share information. The free flow of information is vital for the people in the organization to learn and grow. As people are sharing information, new ideas and insights emerge – people find better ways to get the work done, and to improve effectiveness – new opportunities for the people and organization open up.

Lack of respect, harassment and bullying create an environment of fear, which blocks the flow of information. These behaviors are not only bad for the people, they cost the organization a lot of waste and lost opportunities. In this sort of environment, people are distracted, frustrated and stop thinking about how to do the work more safely and effectively.

Creating New Pathways

In our work, we creatively destroy these barriers and roadblocks that are wasting businesses a lot of money and blocking new opportunities.

knock down the walls that have grown up between people and groups so that the arguments and fighting stop and they learn to value and help each otherWe help to knock down the walls that have grown up between people and groups so that the arguments and fighting stop and they learn to value and help each other. We help to drill holes in the silos of production, HR, maintenance, and finance so that people can talk to each other to get the information they need to do their jobs. We help to remove the barriers that are restricting the up and down flow of critical information, improving its accuracy, so the organization can function more easily. We help to remove the barriers between the people writing rules and procedures (the work-as-imagined) and those doing the front-line work (the work-as-done). We help people to see that most of the injuries and incidents are the result of patterns and processes that need improvement and shift away from a culture of blame and criticism.

I believe that we do not have a right to make our living in a place where it is okay to hurt people, nor is not okay to be disrespectful and beat up on people. When we make these our top beliefs, many fewer people get hurt and abused; our economic performance is a lot better as well. As we learn to work this way, the barriers and roadblocks melt away and new channels and connections emerge.

Avoiding the losses and waste means that our businesses are more competitive and healthy. A strong focus on building positive behaviors, respect and developing a partnership together is a good place to begin to shift the environment to safer and more productive workplaces.

How much do you suppose an OSHA Lost Time Injury costs the business?

  • The pain and suffering is miserable.
  • There is the direct cost of the doctors, hospitals, medications, etc.
  • We lose time…
    • having to investigate the injury and incident.,
    • writing reports,
    • having an OSHA investigation,
    • perhaps the cost of challenging OSHA’s findings,
    • legal costs for the company attorneys,
    • preparing for a potential law suit,
    • the cost of lost production time,
    • the cost of bringing someone and train them to replace the injured person,
    • the cost of lost sales,
    • the cost of bad publicity,
    • the cost of lower morale among the people,
    • and so on.

When the respect and safety gets right, everything else gets right as well in this more positive culture. Not only does the waste of injuries and incidents go away, people shift the way that they chose to work together resulting in other improvements like:

  • fewer arguments,
  • fewer grievances,
  • better meetings,
  • fewer meetings,
  • more suggestions for improving our systems and processes,
  • people taking the lead in helping to fix something that is not right,
  • new ideas for better customer service emerge,
  • lean manufacturing works better,
  • the quality of products and services get better,
  • absenteeism drops, and
  • people can work together to build a better future.

When the safety performance and culture get better, the organization thrives.

These are things that each organization can work on right now. In Partner-Centered Leadership, Richard N. Knowles & Associates can help organizations to achieve all these things. This does not require investment.

  • Get clear on your thinking and purpose.
  • Go into your organization talking with and listening to the people.
  • Help them to build on their ideas.
  • Let them know how important they are to the success of the business.
  • Do this with respect and honesty.

Change is Speeding Up

this is a time when we have to be extra vigilant so that none of us gets hurtChanges are coming fast and furious. President Trump is moving ahead on deregulations and removing barriers to improve our businesses, so we’ll probably see a lot of changes show up in our workplaces. Some will be positive and others will not. It is our responsibility to work together and make all these changes as good as possible.

All these changes are going to be distracting from our usual routines. This is a time when we have to be extra vigilant so that none of us gets hurt. Anytime the pace of our work changes, we move into a higher hazard environment. It is more dangerous when the pace quickens and it is also more dangerous when the pace slows.

Please treat everyone with respect. Look out for and help each other.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , ,

So Much for Respecting and Caring…and Health & Safety!

April 10, 2018 By Leave a Comment

(These qualities must be missing if Safety Bloopers keep happening…and if people actually find them amusing—yet don’t heed the learning that they offer!)

safety should be a company's first priorityAlmost every day I see people post on LinkedIn, engaging in awful safety practices. Some are so ridiculous that they could be funny – except that people are getting hurt. Some workers seem quite content to endanger their lives and co-workers seem to be so unaware of the risks around them – that it is unbelievable!

The remainder of this newsletter addresses the so-called safety bloopers, by asking ourselves…what is going on? And most importantly, what is the lesson in this for me? For my team?

Here’s to a blooper-less workplace where everyone goes home whole at the end of their work-shift, because we care and respect each other – looking out for each other!

More on Safety Bloopers…

In one, some guys were riding on the back of a fork truck to try to provide better balance and the truck still goes out of control; they were lucky to not get hurt. In another, a woman was walking along, reading her cell phone, and trips over the open cover of a sidewalk basement stairway and falls into an open stairway. Another was a guy who was standing on the top of a 12-foot step ladder, changing a light bulb and falls onto the floor. His two co-workers just stood there looking at him as he lay there immobile. Another was a guy pushing his heavily loaded lift cart off a step, and was thrown over the toppling cart is it flips. In another, a guy was working from the top of a 25-foot ladder that was balanced in the raise scoop of a big front-end loader. It goes on and on.

What is going on here? Is management so indifferent that they just tell people to get the job done any way they can? Are people so stupid that they do what they are told even when the hazards are so blatant? Who cares? What do you think?

The safety people I meet at various companies and conferences all seem to care. Managers and supervisors I talk with seem to care. I know Claire and I care, passionately. I do not understand what is going on. In 2016, there were 5,190 people in the USA who were accidently killed at work, so this is a serious problem. Are some of the stupid things I see on LinkedIn contributing to these numbers? I hope not! I hope our business owners and line organizations know better!

safety should be a number one priorityA recent Gallup study conducted over several years, covering about 150 countries, revealed that only about 15% of the people were actively involved in their work and that another 15% were actively opposing their managers and supervisors. The other 70% must be just doing as little as possible and not helping or looking out for each other. We are better in the USA, but not by much.

There are lots of people writing about how to improve safety. There are lots of people working with organizations as consultants and advisors, but there are not enough to watch every single person or be at every worksite. We all have to depend on those around us to help. They see things we don’t see. They notice things that can hurt us that we have missed. They can tell us to slow down and think things through.

What will it take for all of us to be working together with respect and caring? These simple things can make a very big, positive difference. We can show our co-workers that we care and want them to go home safely to their families each day. Each of us can take the initiative to reach out to help.

What will it take for managers, supervisors and all the workers to care enough to save someone from a serious injury or fatality?

Do you care?

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , ,

Some Simple Rules

March 12, 2018 By Leave a Comment

Production activity in most businesses is going up with all the changes in our economy.When there is a change in activity like this, we move into a danger zone. People are busier. More people are needed so the hiring picks up. Already there are reports of more serious injuries and fatalities showing up.

In a time like this, management must take a strong lead so the safety efforts pick up and fewer people get injured or killed. Extra attention is needed.

Simple Rules – Part I

simple safety rules should be followedOne of the most effective things that I did in stressful and changing times like these was to follow these three rules:

  1. Share Information
  2. Build Relationships
  3. Show how each person’s work connects to the larger business

First, I spent more time in the plant talking with the people, sharing information about all our safety, environmental and business activities. People were eager to know about these things so we had many good conversations. I talked about the importance of our safety work, the need to keep our standards high, and to work together so that we could all go home in one piece. I reported on our environmental standards and reports to the State and EPA. People felt good when I could report progress in lowering our environmental impact. I also reported bad news, if that was the case. I talked about our businesses, our key customers, and the need to keep providing high quality products on time and at competitive prices. We talked about near misses and the importance of learning from them and not covering them up. I emphasized the importance of all of us sharing information and talking together.

Second, as I engaged with the people in the plant, I was respectful and attentive to their ideas and thoughts. I answered their questions, and if I couldn’t, I promised I’d get back to them with an answer, and I did. I modeled the respectful behavior that we needed. We talked about the importance of treating each other with respect and that harassment and bullying were not acceptable. Sometimes we did not agree, but I never bullied or put people down. When I found that I was wrong about something, I would admit it and apologize. This always opened up the conversations where we could have honest dialogue. We created a safe space for the important conversations. I encouraged everyone to talk with whoever they needed to talk with (regardless of organizational level or department) to get the information they needed for their work.

Third, I shared a lot of information about the importance of their particular job to our total success and asked for their help. We talked together and learned more about our respective contributions.

These three leadership processes are very powerful in helping the organization to come together and grow. But I could not do it all myself. I needed a lot of help from everyone so that we could pick up our production activities and do it safely without environmental incidents.

Simple Rules – Part II

3 simple safety rulesThere are three important things that everyone needs to do to help to keep the safety performance and productivity high:

  1. Everyone needs to look out for themselves. Be sure you understand the work, have the right safety precautions in place, use the correct PPE, be sure to have the right people there to do the work safely, and being sure that lock-out/tag out procedures and other critical procedures are done. You need to get the rest you need to be sure that you are fit for the work and ask for help when it is needed.
  2. We all need to look out for each other, particularly when new people are coming into the workforce. The new people need to get up to speed and helping each other is critical. Help them to get oriented and learn how to use the PPE and other safety equipment. Teach them the right procedures. Keep an eye out for them to be sure they are fit for the work. If you see someone is getting into a problem, take the initiative and go to help them.
  3. Everyone needs to look out for this place where we are making our living. Keep things in order. Housekeeping needs to be excellent and the preventative maintenance needs gets done. The equipment inspections need to be up-to-date. Equipment should not be abused and damaged. Broken equipment should be repaired expediously and taken out of service if necessary. Work orders need to be addressed promptly.

We are all in this together. Managers and supervisors sharing information, building respect, trust and interdependence, and helping people to see the importance of their work for the success of the whole venture combined with everyone looking out for themselves, looking out for each other, and looking out for this place is a powerful way to keep the safety and production at levels of excellence even in a rapidly changing environment.

Simple Rules – Part III

your business safety rules will keep you preparedIn your tool box meetings or shift start meetings, consider expanding your thinking to imagine how someone could get killed in work planned for the day. This is beyond what most groups do, but is an excellent way to prevent an unlikely tragedy. Talk together about how a fatality could happen. Even the most unlikely scenario will happen one day. Talk about what is in place that will prevent the fatality if the event should happen. Then ask yourselves if these preventative measures are good enough to really protect you. If not, then consider what you need to do so that you will be protected from being killed if the unlikely event should happen.

Many fatalities happen because some really unexpected event occurs. In hind-sight the problems are obvious. Let’s try to make them obvious before hand and prevent an unnecessary death.

Want more information? Or hold a conversation on this? Please give me a call at 716-622-6467. I am pleased to share how simple rules make a difference – a big difference.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: , ,

A Wicked Question

February 12, 2018 By Leave a Comment

wicked questions are safety questionsA wicked question is one where it is so complex that there is no final answer. We work to the best solution we can, which works for some period of time, then we have to revisit it again as conditions change. (The wicked question keeps repeating, sometimes reminding us of a bad penny – that keeps showing up at inopportune times!)

A wicked question requires that we articulate the paradoxical challenges that a group must confront to succeed. Here are some quick examples:

  • How can we dramatically improve safety and quality while drastically reducing costs?
  • How do we work together as a team when we all have competing agendas?
  • How can we commit ourselves to be accountable to measuring results while being open to the possibility that we may not be measuring the right outcomes?

Let me pose this wicked question – one that many of you, as Leaders, may be facing: The question of how to deal with marijuana in the work place, treat all stakeholders fairly, reduce injury rates, better protect the environment and our neighbors, honor the responsibility of our employers for providing a safe workplace, meet OSHA requirements and improve the competitive strength of our businesses? – This is a wicked question!

There is no doubt that marijuana has an impact on our brains. But how much, how long does it last, how much does it impact our ability to think clearly, react appropriately to situations as they change and work safely for ourselves and those around us?

All the stakeholders have ideas about what they see as fair. How do we resolve all the competing demands? We all need safe workplaces and strong, competitive businesses. We need to protect the environment and our neighbors. Those who drive and travel also need to be sharp and alert.

Some Ideas to Consider

investigationa and improvement are needed for wicked questionsWe need to approach this from the whole systems perspective since everything is connected to everything else. Experience shows that if we try to just fix one part of the system or another, we will wind up making other parts worse.

We need to work together in a way that will bring all our strengths and energy to developing the best solutions we can and not bring the sort of conflict we see in Washington into our workplaces. We need to search for the truth and the best solutions as we can.

Developing some agreed-upon basis for the work is critical. For me the mantra was, “I don’t have a right to make my living where it is okay for you to get hurt. We have to make money as well so let’s figure it out and do it.” The key word in this statement is “okay”. It does not mean that bad things may happen. It does mean that we have the courage and determination to relentlessly work together in the pursuit of excellence together – so that bad things will likely not happen.

Having developed our foundation, we next need to bring the people together in tough, focused, serious conversations to best address all the various issues, fairness and demands – developing the best solutions we can for our particular situation. This highly complex, wicked problem needs us all to work with a deep respect for each other, listening, learning and caring.

Simple training programs are insufficient. Edicts from OSHA or top management tend to address only a part of the problem. We all need to work together, engaging in deep conversations with respect and consideration.

A Complexity Tool

A highly effective tool to use to have the critical conversations is the Process Enneagram©, which enables everyone to see the whole, the parts and the interaction of the parts. Using this we can develop a living strategic plan which you can modify as you go forward and conditions change, around the wicked problem and all its tentacles. You can learn more about this tool at RNKnowlesAssociates.com. Please give us a call at 716-622-6467 if you want to learn more about the effectiveness of this way of addressing wicked problems.

Workplace Violence Prevention – (Another Wicked Problem)

workplace violence

All of us, at one time or another, have had to struggle with dysfunctional behaviors in our organizations. Sexual harassment and bullying are examples of this. These sorts of behaviors left unaddressed lead to poor safety performance and eventually to violence. In having worked in a wide variety of organizations we have come to realize that waste caused by these behaviors is very large. The human and financial costs of serious injuries and violence (across the spectrum) can be in the millions of dollars.

There are also large, but often hidden, costs that result from the shut-down of communications and decent social interaction that interfere with the work. In a few situations where we have had the ability to make before and after comparisons in the time to do specific work, like a change and re-setup between production campaigns or the time to do large powerhouse maintenance shutdowns, we have seen 2-3 fold reductions in the time required for the work as a result of the people putting aside the dysfunctional behaviors and working together much more effectively – willingly addressing the wicked problem.

Think about your own organization and the amount of wasted time in poorly run or unnecessary meetings. Think about the time wasted in trying to resolve grievances and other misunderstandings. Think about the waste of having to rework something because the communications were not clear and it was not safe to ask the proper questions.

All these wasted costs build up and can amount to as much as 25% of the cost of the payroll. The hidden costs are often larger than the ones everyone knows about.

In 2016, the payroll for the US workforce was about 16 trillion dollars. That would mean that all this waste could amount to about 4 trillion dollars. That represents a “gold mine” of opportunity for our businesses to become more profitable. Much of this could be saved by treating each other with real respect, listening and learning together and stopping the dysfunctional junk that is going on in so many places. You can learn more about effectively addressing all this at RNKnowlesAssociates.com.*

*Note that this is an older website of ours – yet the homepage information remains pointedly clear; it needs no revisions. Check out this more current website too: SafetyExcellenceForBusiness.com for more about Leadership and Safety – and dealing with workplace concerns.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership, The Process Enneagram© Tagged With: , ,

What If Your Organization’s Safety in 2017 was NOT VERY GOOD?

January 17, 2018 By Leave a Comment

What Can You Do to Turn it Around…So That Every Person Goes Home Safe at the End of the Day?

safety performanceRecognize Einstein’s Words of Wisdom: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.“

This means that a serious “retrospection” is needed. What happened right in 2017? What went wrong? Why? How do we make sure that injuries/incidents will not happen again? Where are we strong? Where are we missing the mark? Who’s supporting Safety? Who’s undermining Safety? How?

Look Deeper: Where are we at cross-purposes? What mixed signals are being given to the Organization? How is Leadership truly leading safety?

Look deeply at the processes you have in place that demonstrate authentic caring about your people and their safety. Here are some great examples…Are your first line supervisors asking these type of questions of their direct reports on a daily basis (individually, and team-wise) in order to manage risks, & engage people genuinely:

  • What are the top 2 or 3 risks you face today in your work?
  • How will you need to help (coworker) today (and vice-versa)?
  • What are the standards you are using today for this job?
  • What risks are you facing and how will you manage them today?
  • How will you know you’ve…done a safe, quality job?
  • What help do you think you might require today?
  • What extra precautions are you taking?
  • What did you learn today, in the course of your work, that you can share to help others on this team (gain competence and commitment to safety)?
  • How did you do on a scale of 1 to 10 today? What surprised you?
  • How can you share this new information to make tomorrow’s tasks be done more safely?

What is Essential to Know: The safety performance of any work team, work group, organization or company directly correlates to the Leadership of Safety…at all Levels of Leadership.

Call us at 716-622-6467 if you want to turn your organization around.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business Tagged With: ,

Workplace Safety: 2018 Can be an Excellent Year

January 10, 2018 By Leave a Comment

Safety Leadership ProcessOSHA recently reported that there were about 5,190 workplace fatalities in 2017. This is almost a 7% increase over 2016. I expect that this partly reflects the higher levels of business activity and more people who are working. Still, every single number reflects a personal tragedy – the death of a worker.

The causes of many of these fatalities are not addressed in much of our safety work, which is largely focused on slips, trips and falls. A lot of the events causing fatalities seem to come from very unexpected directions. These surprising events catch us quite unprepared. A key finding: All of our safety efforts over the last 5-6 years have not had much impact in reducing the number of fatalities which have been at about 4,800 per year until the jump in 2017.

Here is a three-step approach that will make a difference:

  1. First, open up the conversations about potential, really unusual events that could happen as we do our work. As you talk together, have toolbox or weekly safety meetings and ask yourselves to think way outside of the box and imagine what unusual events could happen that could seriously injure or kill you. (Actually these unusual events will happen at some point in the future, so we need to take them seriously.) Ideas will come from all directions as you talk together. The people actually doing the work will have good ideas about what can kill them if things go wrong. Ideas will also come up from reading safety magazines like Professional Safety. Articles in the newspapers about recent tragedies may have some important ideas. A process of brainstorming could be useful. Keep track of your conversations as ideas emerge over time and post them where everyone can see them.
  2. Second, talk about the things that are in place that will protect you in the event one of these fatal events does happen. What are these protections and will they really work? If the protections are not sufficient, then talk together about what needs to be put into place so that the unexpected event will not kill you. Create a synthesis of all you know and have learned so that new perspectives and preventions can be put into place. For example, as I watched the testing of my home generator, the maintenance man opened the electrical switch box in the basement to test the relays. I asked him how he protected himself from an unexpected electrical flash. He said he turned away from the panel so a flash would not hurt him. We talked about the potential for a flash and that people have been seriously burned and blinded by a flash. Just turning away was not going to help him much and I suggested that he talk with his supervisor about this and use additional protection. I also suggested some websites he could find useful. I hope he followed through.
  3. Third, be open to the emergence of new, unusual ideas and suggestions that come out of freely flowing conversations and the synthesis of new insights and knowledge. Some ideas may mean that you talk over each job to be sure you have thought about the unexpected. Maybe a new or different piece of protective equipment is needed. Maybe a reminder about not cutting corners on the procedures is needed. Is extra help needed? Ask yourselves questions about how to do things differently, about new ways to protect yourselves and avoid serious injuries and fatalities. There is a huge amount of information available that can be very useful so steps to better protect you can be developed and used.

These three steps are simple yet are very powerful ways to reducing the chances of a serious injury or fatality:

  • Open up the conversations about the very unusual and unexpected events that could seriously injure or kill you, and keep track of your thinking.
  • Think about the things that are in place that will protect you and decide if they are really sufficient. Synthesize and blend together all the ideas and other information you have into developing better ways about how you will protect yourselves in the event of a serious or unexpected event.
  • As you open up the conversations, synthesizing and blending information and ideas about how to better protect yourselves, new ideas and ways to do things will emerge that will make a big difference in how you work, look out for each other and reduce the chances of a serious injury or fatality.

Your families and loved ones should expect no less from you.

Filed Under: Safety for Business Tagged With: ,

From Good to Great!

December 12, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don'tIn 2001, Jim C. Collins wrote the best-selling management book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t. It described how companies transition from being good companies to great companies and how most companies fail to make that transition. The author found that focused leadership, clear expectations and alignment, and staying true to their field of major competence was key. There were other factors about greatness that showed up too – like Leaders being humble, and high employee engagement – employees being in tune with the company’s purpose, mission, endeavors, goals – not just the business side of things, but on the people side of the enterprise. Line organizations integrated information; people were involved, included and respected – because getting the right people in the right places was deemed as essential too. Entire organizations were communicating, collaborative, and cooperating.

How are things inside your organization? Inside your work team? What needs to happen as you move forward into the New Year so that your workplace can move into greatness? So that a year from now, you’re not scratching your head wondering why you didn’t make much progress toward greatness?

Richard N. Knowles & Associates can help you with continuous improvement. Whether it be increasing your effectiveness, leadership, safety, quality or all of the above. Give us a call and we’ll share how (716-622-6467). It’s worth adding here, that Workplace Violence, including bad behaviors, incivilities, bullying, harassment, and deeper dysfunctions like vengefulness, violence – even homicide, certainly does NOT fit with good or great companies. These are inside-cultural aspects that show up big time when supervisors, teams, leaders, organizations are not principle-based in their leading, and when communication, collaboration, cooperation are absent. We can help you here too.

Click here to read an article Claire wrote, It’s the Simple Things that Count…What Leadership needs to Know & Do NOW to Thwart Incivilities, Bullying, Harassment, & Workplace Violence.

Filed Under: Safety Excellence, Safety for Business Tagged With: , ,

“Workplace Fatalities” by Todd Conklin (2017)

November 13, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Safety Leadership ProcessTodd Conklin works with companies to help them recover and begin to heal after they have experienced a fatality in their workforce. He has come up with a different, creative way to look why the number of fatalities at work has remained at about 4,700 people a year for a number of years. Our programs of focusing on accident prevention have significantly reduced the total number of recordable injuries, but they have not had much impact on reducing the number of fatalities.

In our work, we normally plan to do the job well and prevent an injury or incident. We do training on how to do the particular piece of work. But, for most of our work, we hardly do anything to look at what can kill a person, consider the things that will prevent the fatality, and discuss the ways a person can recover from the situation when it happens. In work, like a confined space entry, which we all know can be deadly, we do everything well most of the time. But in most other tasks, the training is less demanding and the things that can kill someone are often over-looked.

Here are three questions he suggests that we talk together about before doing a job:

  1. What hazards do you encounter that have the potential to seriously injure or kill you?
  2. When your work goes bad what keeps you from getting injured or killed?
  3. Are these enough?

It will take some time to discuss these fully, so please create the space and the trust in the workday so these discussions can take place.

The people actually doing the work are usually in the best position to have the intimate knowledge required to go deep enough.

Todd’s book, Workplace Fatalities: Failure to Predict: A New Safety Discussion on Fatality and Serious Event Reduction, is available from Amazon.

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Process Tagged With: , , ,

The Work Place Violence Spectrum…and What We Can Do About It!

November 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Violence in the workplace is a costly, unnecessary, largely preventable problem. It shows up as incivilities, bullying, sexual harassment, vengeful actions, and sometimes as homicides. These dysfunctional behaviors are costing businesses and the people working for them a lot of money and suffering.

stop workplace violence

According to the Bureau of Labor Statics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, there were 403 workplace homicides in 2014 out of a total of about 4,700 workplace fatalities. Almost two million harassment incidents are reported to OSHA each year, and while there is guidance to thwart them, there are no OSHA Standards dealing directly with this problem. There is, however, the General Duty Clause requiring employers to provide a safe workplace, and it has been noted that this includes physical safety and psychological safety.

Each time I see the scroll come across the bottom of the TV screen, or read an online news report of the main points of the day, I cringe when it relates to another occurrence of a workplace violence incident and tragedy. We know it is preventable. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Call us at 716-622-6467 and let’s discuss your concerns in this arena!

Pertinent Questions

workplace violence

What does an engaged, satisfying workplace look like?

Many surveys indicate that almost 70% of the people in our workforce are unhappy with their work situation. Are these people putting in their best efforts to make the safety of their place any better or help to solve customer problems quickly or reaching out in a caring way to help one of their work mates who may be having a problem?

What should owners, managers and supervisors be doing?

Owners, managers and supervisors have many things they can do to make their organizations safer and more humane, and to increase positive engagement. It begins with these people in leadership positions recognizing and owning the problem. Thorough pre-hiring investigations and careful screening of supervisory candidates are necessary. Strong policies and training about workplace violence are needed. Terms like bullying need clear definitions. Clear, widely shared standards of behavioral expectations are required. Follow-up by all levels of management is necessary to be sure that everyone is doing their best to build a more humane and productive workplace.

What is particularly required of supervisors and managers?

Supervisors need training on how to be fully aware of what is happening with their direct reports…(Do they know their people?) and are they able to hold the important, sometimes difficult conversations with their reports to address and head-off problems before they get out-of-hand? As people talk together about these problems in an atmosphere of trust and caring, everything in the business will improve. We have seen all aspects of performance go up 30-40% when the people can work together like this…when they are able to lift up the elephants (including the psychological ones) that get in the way of the team or work group from being the best that it can be (together).

Some recent, heart-wrenching examples:

Here is a current example of a situation that was reported in the Washington Post where everything was missing. The recent killing by Radee Prince of three people in Edgewood, Maryland and another in Wilmington, Delaware on October 18th is a case where all the things described above were missing. He had a record of 42 arrests, including 15 felony convictions, but did anyone look? Why was he hired? He bullied his co-workers so much that a peace order (like a restraining order) was sought but denied by a judge because it did not meet the burden of proof. People had complained about him to management, but Prince was deemed to “be a good worker.” Where were the supervisors and others to support the claim of fearful concern by coworkers? He was eventually fired but returned to the workplace a number of times threatening other employees. Who let him in? This mess was costly, preventable and so sad!

In another example, on October 20th, in a Ford Stamping Plant in Detroit, police were called when a 21 year old, part-time employee was reported to have a gun in the plant. When he was found and confronted, he shot himself. Didn’t anyone notice that this person was not behaving well? Did anyone know and care about him? Was the EAP person invited in to consider coaching this person? His whole world had collapsed around him and no one noticed?

Helping to reduce workplace violence is work that all of us can do and have a part in. Let’s all pull together to help each other. Do we all care enough?

Are you cringing right now, because you think that having a comprehensive Workplace Violence Prevention Program (policy, training, vulnerability assessment) means too much work?

Think again.

The more fully engaged your people, supervisors and managers are, the better your workplace will be on many levels. The more “aware” of what is happening around you and the more able you are to have open dialog about this changing world of work – including the psychological and physical aspects of your workplace – the better off everyone will be, including the bottom line. (Give us a call. We can help you through this!)

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: ,

Workplace Violence Prevention

October 11, 2017 By Leave a Comment

(Richard N. Knowles & Associates is in alliance with The Workplace Violence Prevention Institute. Accordingly, it is appropriate to lift up how Workplace Violence and Safety are related.)

stop workplace violenceViolence at work is a growing problem. Shootings are becoming one of the leading causes of workplace deaths. Many organizations are having the local law enforcement people come in and do active shooter programs. This is a start. Preventing workplace violence has several aspects and becoming aware of how vulnerable your workplace may be, requires a physical-safety and psychological-safety assessment. These problems just don’t happen overnight in most cases. When someone is struggling with a serious problem at home or at work and have to just keep it to themselves, they get more and more lonely and resentful. If they are subjected to bullying and harassment things get bad, quickly. Stuff can build up to a tragedy. (How well do your supervisors know their people?)

Most of the time when these incidents are investigated, co-workers say that they knew the person was not right, having a problem and being isolated. They often report that they were concerned enough about the person that they tried to avoid them and stay away.

In many organizations where the information should be flowing up and down, the organizations are restricted or blocked, and top management knows only about 10% of what is happening on the shop floor. Information flows need to open up so that critical information is shared and acted upon. A powerful way to open up the flow of information is for the top people to get out of their offices, walk around their facilities and talk with the people. The managers can encourage people to look out for each other and help each other. Talking together, listening to each other, learning together is an effective way for the organization to build the psychological safety where it is okay for people to talk together, learn together and help each other better.

Looking out for each other, helping each other, talking together, listening and learning are keys to improving both the physical and psychological safety in our organizations.

Richard Knowles and Associates has a workable dialog process to help leaders and their teams, organizations, hold the difficult conversations that need to be held around preventing workplace violence. There is a process available that is easily integrated into the day-to-day workplace. It is not enough to prevent hiring the bad “hire,” nor is it enough to prevent promoting into supervision the bad “supervisor” where incivilities beget harassment which can beget taunting which can beget all sorts of dysfunctional, hurtful behaviors, and which can create hostile workplaces and breeding grounds for more severe violent behaviors. With a strong, comprehensive, positive workplace violence prevention program, tragedies can be prevented – hostile workplaces can become civil workplaces. Understanding workplace violence prevention means leaders need to look at both the physical safety/security side and the psychological safety side of one’s business, organization and teams. Call us 716-622-6467 to learn more or send me an email.

workplace violence

Filed Under: Safety for Business, Safety Leadership Tagged With: ,
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