I wrote this email to someone in my network today and decided to follow my own thread. The person asked me about what safety model I think captures best practices for safety professionals if HOP shouldn’t be looked at as the only way to practice safety. My reply:
“My days as a Safety Director/Manager are over 10yrs behind me, and back then I never subscribed to specific models or philosophies of safety. I learned a lot about the places I worked, what they built, what makes managers look like heroes, etc and tried to provide safety as a service to help them meet their agendas.
I know a lot of people talk badly about behavior based safety and some related methods, but there are so many companies that are “immature” in safety and need to start there. I’ve seen a trend with safety pros subscribing to philosophies du jour and getting mad that their employers don’t “get it.” Then I hear about safety pros being burned out and the cycle makes sense. Most of my webinars and talks to safety pros includes a theme of “becoming a student of your employer,” identifying allies outside of the safety department who want to try new things, then try new approaches that work to bridge the gap of where the org is now vs. where the safety pro thinks they should be (but also several steps down from that safety pro’s goal to make sure it’s a SMART goal).
When safety pros pick philosophies and choose guru types of consultants to follow, our profession gets away from our true mission which is giving the workforces we serve the tools they need to work safely. HOP is woven into that, but I like to be “model agnostic” when coaching safety pros and operations leaders on safety improvement.
This email will likely be a blog post soon LOL.”
I’ve had a lot of fun and interesting email exchanges lately as I transition to a new job and new direction on my career path. That info is coming soon!