Safety professionals have thousands, if not millions, of data points at their fingertips. It’s a massive undertaking to collect, organize and maintain that safety data. But don’t let the data exist just in software applications, Excel spreadsheets or three-ring binders.
Use safety data to frame the story of where your company is and where you want it to go. But data is only part of the story. The other part is drawing on the data to be a better safety leader.
Kirk Dighton has over 20 years of safety experience in general industry, construction, wind and agriculture. Currently, he works as safety manager at industrial roofing contractor D. C. Taylor Co. and owns a safety consulting business called Imperial Solutions LLC.
Dighton will share his experiences with benchmarking against the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS Code) and practicing servant leadership at the 2024 Safety Leadership Conference that’s taking place Aug. 26-28 in the greater Denver area. More information, including registration, can be found here. Below is a preview of what to expect from Dighton’s presentation.
EHS Today: How can benchmarking help safety programs?
Dighton: Benchmarking will help any safety leader understand where their company stands compared to others in their same industry. This is a good starting point for any company to begin to measure performance improvement.
How can benchmarking hinder safety programs?
An initial look at your benchmarking numbers can be disheartening as you begin a safety improvement journey. I will give an example in my presentation about two companies in the same NAICS Code.
One company has 50 employees, and the other has 500 employees. If both companies have two recordable injuries, who has the upper hand on TRIR comparison? The one with 500 employees.
What can NAICS Code data tell you?
The NAICS code will provide a national injury and severity average for companies performing the same type of work.
What can't NAICS Code data tell you?
In my opinion, it is often an unfair comparison. In the above example, the larger company can bury their two injuries in their recordable data. I think there should be a per capita comparison as well.
How do you view your company's safety data? How do you discuss it, both internally and externally?
Great stats are something to be proud of, and they give you a target to go after. We share our data frequently on social media and with customers through our newsletter and mailers. We talk about it with our customers who are focused on and view safety data first. We openly discuss our numbers with employees; we maintain that our top priority is the safety of our employees, and that prevention is key.
But if you focus too much on the numbers, employees may try to bury a near miss or a minor injury in order to prevent a negative impact on those numbers. That’s not what we are about. Honesty and integrity are everything in safety.
How do you humanize safety? What advice or recommendations do you have for other safety professionals on how to humanize safety?
I come from the servant leader approach. I believe in focusing on the well-being of every person on our teams. This approach will enhance your safety performance by empowering everyone to make critical decisions and not allow short cuts by others on their team.
Be a servant to your people. It will pay huge dividends in your safety outcomes.
What does it mean to be a safety leader, and how do you build influence?
Being a safety leader means to lead by example and set high expectations for everyone on your teams. You influence others by treating them with respect. Ask them challenging questions, and listen to what they have to say. While at on-site auditing visits, stop and teach when you find something incorrect. It builds trust and mutual respect.
Based on your experiences as a safety manager and consultant, what is the biggest barrier to achieving safety excellence? What's the first step to tackling that obstacle?
Analyze your trends and do your research on the cost of poor safety programs and culture. The culture change to safety excellence starts with top leaders. Those leaders will have your back when getting a culture change pushed through to all teammates. This is the first step, then maintaining consistency in your safety expectations.
What’s one thing you hope attendees take away from your session at the Safety Leadership Conference?
I hope that attendees come away with an understanding of the importance of their roles as EHS leaders. They have a big influence on safety culture in their companies. The safety culture is well rounded with good leadership setting examples, an effective training program and consistent expectations with excellent communications.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
