Chris Mitchell, CSP (email)
Safety Advisor, Safety Management Group
Professional sports teams are groups of people who bring very different skills together to achieve victories. A pitcher and a third-basemen work just feet apart, but have separate responsibilities. A left tackle and a quarterback couldn’t be more different, but their actions must be perfectly synchronized. And point guards and centers have roles that evolve depending on the side of the court.
Even with all the right skills in place, teams usually need something else to help them succeed: coaching. It’s the coach’s job to stay focused on the big picture, coordinate every player’s role, and help each achieve maximum performance. When something goes wrong in a game, the coach calls a timeout, and works with the team to change strategies.
Shift your focus to a construction site, and you’ll have a similar situation. You’ll find all sorts of professional craftspeople with specialized skills, working under a common timetable to erect a structure under the guidance of supervisors. One type of coach on the "field" is a Safety Coach, who's charged with reducing hazards and ensuring that nobody gets hurt. A manager/foreman/supervisor who performs his or her job like a coach, respecting the ”players” and providing the right expertise at the right time, will generally achieve a higher level of safety.
It’s about motivation
Coaching is fundamentally about helping individuals do their best, so the team as a whole can do better. The key to motivating other people is to develop an understanding of their needs.
Recently, Dr. Greg Sipes explained worker needs to the Safety Management Group team by drawing upon the pyramid that psychologist Abraham Maslow developed. Maslow’s pyramid begins with the most basic needs of survival. As each need is met, an individual moves up the pyramid.
Most of today’s workers have already achieved the point on the pyramid where they feel safe and secure, so Dr. Sipes says that their primary needs are a sense of belonging and self-esteem. The two are closely related – belonging can come from a team environment and self-esteem can be improved based on the success of the team – and both will enhance an organization’s safety culture. By recognizing the importance of both belonging and self-esteem, a safety coach can present information in ways that are more meaningful to employees.
Encouraging safer actions
Just as players don’t join a team to fail, workers come to the site wanting to succeed. Recognizing that, the safety coach can tap into and develop the motivation to work safely. By celebrating the team’s successes and supporting positive actions, the safety coach provides positive reinforcement to both individuals and the team as a whole. It can overcome the us-versus-them mentality that can lead to a variety of problems on the site, and encourage employees to perform beyond the normal expectations of their jobs.
Different people will be motivated by different factors, so the safety coach’s feedback should focus on each individual’s source of motivation. One worker might be motivated by quality. Another might take pride in faster-than-normal production. Identifying those motivators helps the safety coach achieve the best performance from each team member.
Ideally, motivation will also help the craftspeople develop a strong sense of ownership in every aspect of the process, including safety. When the job is done and nobody has been hurt, they’ll take pride in the role they played in making that happen. While few people will come out and admit it, that sense of self-satisfaction is every bit as important as their paychecks.
Respect breeds credibility
If you want to identify an excellent coach, ask the players. If they see the coach as a credible, trusted expert who helps them achieve more, you can count on the fact that the coach has a tremendous amount of respect for the players and their abilities.
One of the best ways to do that is the simple act of getting to know the members of the teams. Learn their names and something about them. Find out what they like to do when they’re not working. Begin a conversation with Bill the electrician by asking him whether he did any fishing this weekend, and you’ll foster a better relationship than initiating a conversation by asking about the adequacy of a ground. Taking the time to get to know the craftspeople shows them that you have a genuine interest in their well-being.
Another important factor in building credibility is doing what athletes call “walking the talk.” Modeling the safety attitudes you expect employees to follow enhances their validity and your credibility. If the safety coach takes the time to ensure that his fall protection is properly adjusted, the workers will take that step more seriously.
What coaching is not
Some people misunderstand the role of coaching and what it can accomplish. For example, creating policies and procedures is not coaching, because it doesn’t motivate employees to work more safely. Most injuries are the direct result of employee actions, and effective motivation can drive the right actions.
Coaching is also not policing or discipline. Making threats about discipline or trying to catch employees breaking the rules only breeds resentment and mistrust in the workplace. Employees who feel threatened tend to maintain minimal compliance so they can stay out of trouble, but will rarely have any motivation to go above and beyond what’s expected.
Suppose an employee’s fall protection equipment is not set up correctly for the situation. Instead of threatening to write him up or yelling at him, become his coach and call a timeout. Ask him to stop what he’s doing for a moment and reevaluate the situation. Point out that his anchor point is ten feet off the ground, but he’s six feet tall and is using a six-foot lanyard, so the ground will stop him before the lanyard has a chance. Encourage him to develop solutions, whether that involves finding a new anchor point or bringing in a lift. By showing interest in his safety and encouraging him to identify a better way, you become an ally instead of an enforcer.
In addition, coaching is not about training. It’s all about teaching. Many people think the two are synonymous, but there are big differences. Training tends to be compliance-based, while teaching is about sharing skills and helping an individual find the answers on his or her own. It’s more of a one-on-one process designed to create a lasting effect, rather than an effort to share rules. In addition, training is not a cure-all, because injuries still occur to employees that may be fully trained or competent on a certain task.
One more thought: teaching should be practical and appropriate to the task at hand. Don’t go into detail that won’t benefit the worker at all. If he needs to learn how to tell time, teach him how to do that, but don’t explain how to build a watch.
The ultimate goal
Nobody comes at a job site wanting to get hurt. Everyone wants to do his or her job and go home safely at the end of the day. Given the opportunity, most people will do things the right way. Unfortunately, just as a football team may make mental mistakes in a key game, sometimes workers get complacent, get sidetracked, or take dangerous shortcuts. That’s when it’s time for the safety coach to call a timeout, step in, and remind everyone how to get back on the right track.