What Makes Safety Initiatives Stick?

Dr. Maria Silva-Palacio | Safety Advisor and Author of Safe Zone

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Hello, and welcome today. We're excited to have you here as we explore what makes safety initiatives really stick. And this is part of our ongoing monthly series that we host with utility professionals tackling some of the biggest questions and the biggest needs in the industry and partnering with some of the most well-respected experts in the field in certain topics.

One of the issues that we hear over and over again is that, oftentimes, safety initiatives, while being well-intentioned, quickly become a flavor of the week. And so, today, we're thrilled to be joined by someone who is not only an expert from this from firsthand implementation, but now, is a leader and a consultant in the field, Dr. Maria Silva Palacios.

I'm Dr. Kevin Rindal. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Vimocity and the host for today. For those of you who don't know, Vimocity, is a workforce readiness platform, and so we really aim to support frontline workers and safety teams with the physical, mental, and job-specific readiness components so that they can be successful and maintain safe and, resilient workforces. So let's go ahead and jump in today and meet, Dr. Maria.

Dr. Maria is the author of Safe Zone. She has over twenty years of experience as a frontline leader in the utility industry, and like I mentioned, she is now a consultant. But, also the author of Safe Zone. I personally have just so enjoyed reading this book. Dr. Maria and I have known each other since probably two thousand eighteen, and I just really appreciate her leadership. So Dr. Maria, thank you so much for joining, this conversation.

Well, thank you for that lovely introduction, Dr. Kevin. I'm gonna give you just a little bit more background about me and what I've been doing the last couple years. You know, first, I had the privilege of work working in a wonderful career in the utility industry where I served as a safety professional.

And, primarily, I was supporting some field crews as well as some of the office workforce. And then somewhere around 2020, I decided to take an early retirement to focus on my last year of my doctorate program at USC. So fight on if there's, you know, any protons out there.

Then upon graduating I'm graduating, I immediately focused on authoring and publishing my first book called Safe Zone Cultivating Engagement one leader at a time. And then this past year, also, I've been focused on, my business, Ergon Cultural Solutions, where I serve as an ergonomic and safety culture change consultant. So that's what I've been doing, and I'm just gonna pass on the time to you.

Yeah. And thank you so much for that, additional background. Well, you obviously really honed in on the fact that getting safety initiatives to stick is a pain point. And it's, it's across all industries because there are so many competing factors for time, especially when we're, trying to balance, safety with operational efficiency.

So I'd love to learn a little bit more. What is, one thing you've seen from a challenge that safety leaders consistently experience, especially when rolling out new initiatives?

Well, truth be told, I've seen and witnessed many and experienced many. However, there are a few that really stand out to me. And the, one of them and not in any particular order of importance is when leaders tend to be reactive versus proactive.

So for example, they could have a check off the list mindset, you know, without really, being very strategic about which initiative to roll out, how to roll it out so it will be sustainable.

The other is, miscommunication or sometimes, I've found no communication at all in terms of the purpose of the initiative.

So it's just a lot of focus on, just, you know, what the what, the how, not the why, and also not including engaging the employee in the, process of creation and the implementation of the initiative.

Another thing too I've come across is something called, organizational misalignment, which I refer to the lack of agreement or within organizations or the company in general or indecisiveness, specifically around, developing, you know, creating SOPs or any mandates, needed around, participation expectations, for example.

So if it's an initiative that requires participation, is it gonna be mandatory? Is it not mandatory?

What does mandatory look like? So that's one of them. And then lastly, which I'm thinking about it probably should start it off with this one, highly important, very foundational is that leaders, do not understand their own workplace culture. So if leaders do not fully understand the culture and have a realistic grasp of what's happening in their culture, many efforts just fall to the wayside.

And and I I love that, especially with your book, because your book isn't just based on anecdotal information. You, like, rolled your sleeves up. You went out, and you actually spoke to frontline workers, and a lot of them, and heard feedback from them. You spoke to the foreman, the supervisors, all the way up to the senior leaders, and so you really were able to look at this issue from multiple angles.

There's a consistent theme that leadership, support and leadership engagement and visible leadership with the frontline workers is is such a critical component to success. Can you maybe expand on that just a little bit further?

In terms of, like, supporting. Correct?

Yes. Correct. The success of an initiative. Yep.

Absolutely crucial for support. And what does that look like? I would ask, I've asked many of the companies I'm working for is what does success what does support look like to you? What does support look like to your workforce?

And a lot of it is just diving in to modeling the behavior that they want to see in their organization, focusing on their people, not just, you know, people and their safety, not just, the the prioritization, you know, cost or production or performance or emergent work. So, and then, also, if it requires participation from an employee and the workforce, crucial, crucial component is that the leader also rolls up their sleeves and gets right in there with them. So you are role modeling. You are practicing what you preach.

You know, I can go on and on. Right? Walk the walk, talk the talk. So those are all crucial components.

That's great. And in your, book, you talk about that as being authentic leadership. And it's really not only just saying one thing, but then modeling that. And, we see that as a consistent pattern as well with successful initiatives.

When it comes to the frontline workers, you like I said, you interviewed a lot of them. And one of the things that I notice as a pattern is that there oftentimes seem to be confusion or a disconnect between something being mandatory or what the expectations were from a participation standpoint, to the frontline workers. Can you speak a little bit more about the importance of that clarity from leadership, regarding expectations when you're rolling out an initiative?

Sure. And I wanna first preface my answer with I have deep, deep respect for the frontline leaders.

They have it tough. I know. I've been there. I've seen it, especially within the late hours of the morning when I've done group visits at sometime between midnight and four AM. We have a lot of pressures, and, it's it's important for I'm sorry. I had to bring it up. Can you repeat the question?

Yeah. No no problem.

I really just I think My my wisdom.

Yeah. Yeah. No. Aligning, the expectations from leadership to the frontline workers so that everyone's on the same page and understands, you know, what the expectations are with with any type of safety initiative rollout.

So thank you for that.

What I go back to, Dr. Kevin, is the importance of having that alignment between the organizations, between the company, between the front leaders, between, you know, the mid middle management, just having an alignment across the board. If you don't have alignment from the top down, there's just, there's not gonna there I believe that that success is not very likely in initiating and rolling out these initiatives and then sustaining them. So it's important to know, you know, what are we rolling out? Why are we rolling it out? So as I mentioned, focusing not just on the what and the habit on the why, Giving clear understanding or clear expectations around what is their participation expectation.

That was something that I really struggled with in the utility industry was they would roll out an amazing program, a phenomenal program, cutting-edge program, but it was different mandatory expectations throughout the entire territory. So some areas where, yes, we're mandatory.

What does that look like? It could mean guys participating or guys just being in the room.

So a complete alignment around the entire initiative, creating those SOPs and or mandates around them, will definitely lead to success.

Thank you. Yeah. That's a great, response. I appreciate that. I'm gonna pause here real quick too to also note that we are do have, the ability to answer some questions at the end of this conversation.

And so if anyone does have, questions, you can definitely put those in the the audience chat, and we'll make sure to leave a few minutes at the end, so that we can answer those questions.

Another observation that I've seen, and you also referenced this, is that oftentimes there is a tension between safety initiatives and operational efficiency. There's work that has to be done, so how does, how does that get prioritized? And so, what would you say to safety leaders as they're communicating with operational leaders in terms of how to align, this initiative so that, again, we can, we can have a successful rollout. Because at the end of the day, especially injury prevention initiatives, ultimately, it's keeping people safer, healthier, on the job, performing at their best, which leads to that operational efficiency. So how any tips that you could provide us in terms of, like, how safety leaders can, you know, better communicate and coordinate with with, operational leaders?

Oh, absolutely.

A couple things come to mind, but, you know, I'm I'm definitely love safety stats and just research stats in general, so I'm gonna kick it off with some stats. And in terms of safety initiatives, safety programs, health, on-site health programs, the research shows and it it indicates that approximately seventy percent of companies provide some type of health or safety program or initiatives.

However, the other very startling data is that less than fifty percent employees engage.

And so another startling research stat is that research shows that less than fifth five percent less than five percent of leaders have emotional intelligence.

So what I would say to leaders on whether you're safety or operational leaders is do not underestimate the power of those authentic leadership attributes that I mentioned in my book. Some of them are, you know, vulnerability and transparency, you know, reading with heart, you know, having that purposeful passion, which I also would add to adding that purposeful fact passion when and enthusiasm when you support an initiative, and integrity. You know, integrity goes a long way.

Your employees are watching you. They're watching you. They're watching what you do more so than what you say. So all of these attributes, you know, they foster and sustain trust.

And, eventually, in my experience in the research is that these are components that will help a safety culture initiative stick.

That's great. And I know that if guests look back in our, previous episodes, we spoke with, Booga Gilbertson, who was the chief operating officer for Utility.

And she talked about how visible leadership was one of the most important things for creating, momentum and creating initiatives that stick. Because when you're out in the field as a leader and you're connecting with those frontline workers, it just it has such a huge impact.

So thank you, and it sounds like you're totally aligned with that.

You mentioned some of the other attributes related to leadership, and in the book, you talk about psychological safety. And so I think that, you know, as we think about like serious injury and fatality prevention, high energy safety, and really helping the workforce be ready, for the work and the challenges that they're going to experience, and you know, be in the right mindset to identify hazards, and then put those direct controls in place. One of the things that continues to come up in the research is that the pre-job brief is absolutely one of the most important moments in the day to set the tone from a safety perspective and ensure that people are ready to identify those hazards.

Can you talk about maybe some principles related to psychological safety, especially as we're guiding people who may be leading those, those pre job briefs so that everybody involved, has that psychological safety and feels comfortable speaking up and sharing, risks that, you know, that they're seeing that other people might not be seeing.

Oh, absolutely.

So psychological safety, right, feeling the is the concept of employees feeling safe to speak up without any fear of repise per reprisal.

And, when psychological safety, is there within an organization, especially during such a critical, critical time as a pre job briefing or as I usually would know as a teleboard briefing. Right?

Employees are going to be more apt to speak freely about potential hazards that perhaps weren't even captured in the original written tail board form, because they know they know that their voice is not only gonna be heard. Their voice is also valued.

And the other component is that when there is that psychological safety during a telework briefing, it prevents that common although many leaders do not want to admit and it's difficult even as a safety person to admit that, that pencil whipping happens.

And so when you have that psychological safety in an organization, the crews are gonna be more apt to, you know, bring those, potential hazards that perhaps weren't being discussed, the pencil whipping.

And instead, what happens is it goes from a checklist mindset to having valuable dialogue about potential hazards. And then it's also very important because this empowers teams.

The act of having the the the the the relaxation that one feels when you know that there is psychological safety, it empowers the team to be proactive instead of reactive, and especially when it comes to making those important safety decisions.

No. That's that's great. I I just had a conversation with some friends from, organization called Echelon Front, and that's the group that does, extreme ownership. And I know that you talked about extreme ownership in your book. And he and I had a really long discussion about, decentralized command and how when you have that, you're allowing, essentially, that exact same scenario, that psychological safety for people to feel, empowered to be leaders. Because at the end of the day, anyone, every single one of us is a leader, and a leader is just someone who influences others. And so creating that environment really does, like, is a foundation of safe practices.

We actually, I'm going to move to some questions from the audience. So we have a question from Paul. How does culture influence safe work practices? And it's right in line with what we, what we just talked about. So, would you mind sharing a little bit more about culture and things that people can do to invest in, a safe, culture?

Absolutely, and that's a great question, so thank you so much. If you've ever come across if if you haven't and, familiarize yourself with, a model, organizational culture model called the iceberg model. Been around for in the seventies.

I truly believe in it. And what culture means is they utilize the, iceberg as a as a metaphor. So anything that's happening above the water line, ten is only ten percent of what's really occurring in a in an organization.

And that ten percent are things that people hear, things that the leadership or company proclaim, safety first, the values, procedures, protocols. However, below the waterline, which is ninety percent what I call entrenched culture, those that area below the waterline is where the assumptions, the experiences, the beliefs, the legends, the stories, all of those things truly exist.

And that's important because that culture, that ninety percent will drive behavior. It will drive decision making. It will drive, whether or not a person feels they have emotional psychological safety. So it really sets the tone for what may be or not be successful in the company. Great question.

Thank you for that. I love that iceberg analogy. And, you know, very much along those same lines, we have another question from Sean. Do you have any tips for getting buy in from union crews or the long-tenured employees who've seen it all before? And, I mean, this is a theme that I've seen so much. But, yeah, I would love to hear your, your thoughts on this.

Oh my gosh. Sean, you are speaking, preaching to the choir over here with Union. I, first and foremost is the relationship building.  I found that within a union, whatever union that is, and the management, whatever company that is, you both want the same thing. If you really look at the end goal, what is the end goal? And start looking at things that you have in common, which is you wanna keep your employees safe. You want them to go home the way that they came to work. So start there. Start at having that dialogue, and and that dialogue only begins when you establish that relationship, a relationship that's built on trust, you know, and transparency.

And, I would start there and then have a partnership of the lead of the union help you roll out that initiative. I've seen tremendous success in the industry that I was in when there was an initiative that rolled out and it called for participation, the union came in and they actually even created a video to support that initiative. So there was union buy in, and it can happen.

Yeah. Thank you so much for that answer.

We have a question from, Natalia, and it's what building buy in advice would you provide to safety leaders who do not have professional experience in the field, who are now working with field personnel that feel their leadership should have a direct professional experience with the work.

Wow. Natalia, read my book, please. I went through that as a safety professional. I think, and I can be just completely transparent here. I, I went through, like, six interviews for a safety position from a former position that I have in that same company, and nobody would hire me because I didn't come from the field. I didn't have that technical expertise.

And I just kept trying and trying and trying. And so when an opportunity came, fortunately, that I had the the hiring manager who was a former lineman and had worked through the rank, worked up through the ranks to become, you know, higher level, higher level, manager in safety.

He knew from experience that although it is important to know the work, to know what the craft is doing, because how are you gonna keep them safe if you don't know, you know, the the different rules and policies and the work, the actual work?

So he gave me a chance because I said, I I just really had to bring that value proposition and say, this is what I can offer.

And I'll tell you when you have that passion and it's genuine and you truly care about employees, they're gonna see that first. And then spend the time getting to know the workforce.

Spend the time letting them tell you and show you what you do what they do. Because I'll tell you, that's something that I really admire about my work as well is that the guys are very proud of their job and what they do as they should as they should be. And so I took that opportunity to have them say have them show me what they do. And I'll tell you, I got to know their names, their wives' names, their kids' names, the birthdays, and it was more about fostering that relationship on a personal level, and then the rest just sort of fell into place.

But it took some time. I also spent some time learning the work myself. So I know when we had some fall restraint, training at our training center, I put my gas on. I learned to climb, you know, Grant, and I learned to have a ten foot cross arm in my arm.

I climbed up and down the pole. I loved it. I loved to work out, so it became another workout for me. So spend some time.

And I'm not advising you to go and climb a pole, but, you know, just do try to spend some time in in in knowing getting to know what they do as well. Great question.

That's such a good great answer. I know I came from a clinical background, zero experience in utilities, and, man, rolling up my sleeves and just understanding that work and just having that profound respect for the frontline workers and what they do and their important contribution is so key to to building those relationships. So thank you for sharing that.

And, Dr. Kevin, if I can just add one more thing, I'll tell you what that happened to my reputation that really built my credibility, that I wasn't the safety police.

I wasn't coming out there just to catch something that they were doing wrong. I truly was interested in what they were doing. And then when I got to know their work enough, then I was able to come out. They never thought of me as a safety police. They thought of me as somebody who just planning to help them and spend some time with them, bring them donuts and coffee on occasion, and it was great.

Great. Thank you. Well, we have time for one more question. I I see that there are several more, and so we we may have to respond to those offline. But this last question is, from Mark. What can I say to frontline workers who discount the written part of pre job brief over the verbal discussion?

Mark, thank you for that question. Then you're done at it as well.

I think what worked for me, if I recall, is that we really have to just narrow it down to we can't remember everything.

We're human beings, and we just can't retain everything. And depending on the job, depending on the job, if the job is very elaborate and and, a lot of intricacies, it's important for us as leaders to communicate that to them that it's not because we're trying to, get them to write it down so that then they can be held accountable later, which, again, that's for me, seems that it could be a trust issue, so work on that. But really focusing on, and having them understand and encouraging them to consider that it's really just so we can capture everything. And and then have the verbal based on the written.

Thank you for that question Dr. Priya. Well, these conversations go by so quickly. We're already at time. We try to keep these within a half hour, block so that people can fit them in during the day. This will be recorded and posted on our events page. And so, we will have, this video available, and you're welcome to share that with other people.

As I mentioned, we do have these, conversations on a monthly basis. Our next conversation is happening happening July sixteenth, and we'll be talking about avoiding heat stress and strategies for outfitting crews, for the heat. So we're really excited to to do that. We're partnering with, our vendor partners, Dragonwear, and their leadership, to have that conversation.

Additionally, if you would like to get Dr. Maria's book, it's available on Amazon. Highly, highly recommend it. There are just so many, nuggets of gold in there, in terms of how you can, just continue to build the leadership and, the get the fundamentals in place to have a safety initiative, that not only sticks, but is impactful and really does, positively impact the culture and the quality of life of the workforce.

Well, Dr. Maria, thank you so much for your time. If any of you have questions, you can reach out to Doctor. Maria. Her email is right here. Or myself. We're happy to respond to those. I do see several additional questions that we weren't able to get to. So, we'll be responding to you directly, with those questions. But definitely look forward, to seeing you for future events.

If you'd like to join future events, you can scan this QR code, and we'll make sure that you get on that, email list so that you can be notified. And then it also will direct you back to previous conversations.

Dr. Maria, thank you so much for your time. We really, really appreciate it. And we're grateful for your your safety leadership and all that you're bringing to, the industry through your knowledge.

Thank you very much.