Ascencia can assist you in developing bespoke health, safety and sustainability solutions and leadership programs that will transform your HSS performance and create a truly engaged workforce who actively look out for the well-being and safety of each other.
Increasing importance is being placed on safety, sustainability and well-being and performance in these areas has become a key priority for most businesses. The well-being and safety of employees, stakeholders and communities within which companies operate should be a core value for every leader. Poor results in these areas will have negative impacts on people, financial performance and reputation.
As the line between work and life continues to blur, great leaders are focusing on physical, personal and financial health, as a corporate responsibility and a strategy to drive employee productivity, engagement and retention. As leaders, we have a responsibility to meet our business, community and industry needs in a sustainable way. Our behaviours must demonstrate a responsible approach to social, economic and environmental performance, aligned with the priorities of the people of our nation and communities we live and work in.
Transformational Safety Leadership moves beyond a compliance-based approach, with the mindset that safety is more than just avoiding the negatives such as accidents and incidents; rather, it is something that we can proactively improve. Leaders must take complete ownership of safety behaviors and outcomes and must inspire their people to lead with safety and to improve behaviors that drive towards the elimination of all risks in the workplace.
Continuous improvement is at the heart of moving beyond a pure systematic approach and organizations must move beyond the traditional plan-do-check-act cycle and turn their focus to:
- Management and Leadership commitment
- Your organizational context
- Employee engagement
- Risk-based thinking
In other words, moving beyond a compliance based approach means turning focus more broadly to:
- Your organizations health, safety and sustainability systems, (yes, they are still important!)
- The entire business being active participants in mitigating risk and eliminating hazards
- Leaders creating an environment where the critical behaviours are most likely to occur, (even when no one is watching)
- Leaders owning and leading the strategy through their own behaviours
Successful Safety Leadership begins with leaders at all levels understanding
the impact of their behaviors on safety performance
At the heart of an inspirational safety leadership intervention and a Total Safety Culture, is a concept called Actively Caring for People. This supports any leaders’ desire to create an engaged and self-motivated workforce. Wray was introduced to Actively Caring by Dr. Scott Geller and implemented some of the concepts successfully in Africa, with the assistance of Safety Performance Solutions. Wray also contributed to a chapter in Dr. Geller’s book, Actively Caring for People; Cultivating a Culture of Compassion, together with his long time associate and friend Dr. Tim Ludwig at Safety-Doc.