Safety transformation

Nothing changes unless behaviour changes

“Safety is our number one priority.” Fact or Slogan? Over the past 10 years Meetingpoint Partnership have developed and successfully implemented interventions that improve safety culture and safety performance.

We have used key research to determine the levers that individual leaders can pull to increase safety performance in their areas of influence that yield results within 3-6 months.

Our flagship program has had over 4,500 people attend across sectors. This intervention has had significant positive results and this has established a strong reputation in the marketplace. The program has had success in Mining, Utilities, Health, Infrastructure (including Airports), Manufacturing and Research and Development.

We tailor our program to fit the starting point and priorities of each client. We jointly diagnose where you are starting from and the type of safety culture they aspire to have. We then design a tailored offering to fit your needs.

Safety performance is a leadership issue.

Each level of leadership in an organisation has a particular role to play. Safety performance is optimised when leaders at all levels are committed and equipped to engage first line workers to ensure they work safely day in, day out.

Our flagship program RESOLVE and its follow up program RESOLVE PLUS are designed to reduce or eliminate injuries of the former “personal safety” type by demonstrating three leadership behaviours. When these leadership behaviours are used in more situations with more people they lead to a reduction in injuries and incidents.

Each participating organisation has reported a reduction in key safety measures such as LTI’s and MTI’s after one year of following the RESOLVE program.

MPP Cultural Model

Our model for Safety Cultural Transformation identifies four stages – the least developed being “Reacting” (Q1) moving clockwise through each quadrant to “Transforming” (Q4). This model is informed by Robert Kegan’s model of the Stages of Social Maturity.

We have mapped our market offerings against this model in the next section within this article. To select the most appropriate intervention, it is important to understand where the organisation or each part of the organisation falls within the roadmap

Detail of Meetingpoint Partnership interventions to assist safety culture transformation

1. RESOLVE
   Our 2 or 3 day flagship program which has been used successfully as a starting point for our existing clients in their safety culture transformation. The content focuses on equipping leaders from the top down to demonstrate the three leadership behaviours which have the greatest impact on safety climate – so impacting in the safety culture. We apply these behaviours to the specific safety accountabilities of each leader undertaking the program. These accountabilities change as we move down the organisation. We use a top down process where each level of participant experiences leadership within the program from a senior leader in addition to Meetingpoint Partnership facilitation. This program is most impactful at Q2.
2. RESOLVE PLUS
   Our experience shows the shift from Q2 to Q3 is the most difficult to achieve. Where first line leaders struggle in embedding the new skills, we supplement our RESOLVE program with a first line leader refresher program 8–12 months following RESOLVE. This enables further in-depth practise of key safety leadership skills.
   RESOLVE PLUS uses corporate actors to simulate some of the people challenges first line leaders experience, thus enabling actual safety leadership challenges to be brought into the training room and practised. We research the common challenges prior to the program and rehearse relevant scenarios to ensure they fit your culture, language and business. The first session of the one-day program requires participants to speak to what they have achieved since the phase one program – what worked and what is still a challenge. We encourage this input to be signed off by their one up leader prior to them attending the program. This promotes discussion, input and a relative degree of support and challenge on the content of what they present to the group.
3. One on one coaching of selected senior leaders.
   In our experience the shadow that is cast by this group’s individual leadership style has the most impact on how first line leaders will lead safety. The ability and commitment of senior leaders is critical to a positive safety culture. This usually requires many people to change how they behave. If senior leadership behaviour doesn’t change – then nothing will change. One on one help is valuable for senior leaders to help them think about their values for safety – to help craft their safety messages, and develop leadership behaviour which has the greatest impact on climate. One on one coaching is useful in situations where the senior leader is either experiencing difficulty embedding elements of the “Complying” stage and and/or finding an authentic democratic style (a critical factor for attaining the “Engaging” stage). This intervention is therefore most applicable to stages Q2 and Q3 of the safety journey.
4. Personal Safety Report
   Our personal safety offerings now include cognitive safety – change from the inside out. We use the Hogan Safety Report to assess the individual personality traits which impact safe working practices. We use this information to help the individual team member learn about any behavioural patterns which derail safety. We also coach them on committing to manage their safety behaviour differently. This assistance is in the form of one on one feedback sessions for those who have shown they have higher risk factors (as identified by the frequency of incidents or near misses they have been involved with). In addition, we coach the line manager about how to support and challenge the actions arising from our feedback to the individual. This intervention is most useful with first line leaders or individual operators on the first line. It is most effective in Q3 and Q4.
5. Think Twice Program
   A one day program enabling teams of individual workers to assess their personal values for safety and the safety of others. We do this by gauging reactions of participants in non-work situations. This tests knowledge and the practice of risk assessment in actual job situations, and enables first line operators to undertake a safety observation and give the type of feedback which motivates people to change their behaviour. It enables the participants to learn the behaviours of highly effective teams to ensure a safe workplace where no-one gets hurt and what effective teams do to keep each other safe. This is most effective when teams are ready to make the shift to Q3.
6. Group coaching of senior leaders
   We coach senior business leaders to help them plan for a shift in the way they lead safety using a team approach. Whilst Meetingpoint Partnership safety coaching events include the ability to build technical safety know how (where this is required), the main focus is on the leadership styles which will best impact a more positive safety culture. The coaching sessions focus on moving a leadership group onto how they can create a culture where employees take more responsibility without the need for management control. Appropriate in Q2, Q3 and Q4.
7. Intact Team development
   A one day program with intact teams with the aim of fast tracking safety change initiatives. The program is based on real challenges which need to be actioned by leaders in the specific business environment. The program equips teams to think about how they work together to raise momentum for change and addresses key issues such as team roles, team dynamics, handling conflict, clarifying requirements for change. During the workshop, the intact team works on a current key safety change initiative and will plan for how it will be introduced, managed and evaluated. We coach a senior manager to co-lead the workshop with us to ensure the business context, relevance and priorities are maintained. This is usually of maximum benefit when a team is ready to make the move to Q4.