The next level of safety

Staffieri: At E.ON U.S., safety is not a one-time project and it is not managed in leaps and bounds. We take a very long view and a methodical and continuous improvement approach.

Building our safety culture to its current stage has taken a great deal of time and energy over a number of years, strong leadership, and an unwavering desire for improvement by both management and employees. The effort has paid off. Safety now is an intrinsic behavior for our employees, rather than something they are directed to do. Consequently, we have a top-led, employee-driven safety culture, which means management provides the leadership and employees – as well as our contractors – are responsible for safety every moment of every day. After all, they are the ones who are most directly exposed to potential hazards. No one is in a better position to manage the exposure than the worker facing it. In this type of work environment, safety dialogue between upper management and workers is an ongoing, natural component. There is no disconnect when management is not present.

As we move through different safety stages, we make improvements that are right for the time and the situation. It is the responsibility of our leadership to ensure consistency in safety practices, information sharing and continuous improvement across the organization. A recent significant outgrowth of this effort has been more best-practice sharing and standardization of processes between our electric generation and distribution groups, which have different types of operations but share a desire to achieve safety excellence. This initiative will take us to our next level of safety performance.

Staffieri: From a financial standpoint, the economic downturn does not affect safety in our organization because safety is driven by our employees' behavior, not money. Budgets and priorities may have operating impacts, but they do not affect the safe practices by which work is performed. When we began building our culture nearly a decade ago, we clearly established the fact with our management team and employees that absolutely nothing would be a priority over safety, including financial constraints. It was hard to convince some people that fundamental safety practices and attitude determine excellent performance and not budget, tools or other tangible factors. With that directive came a pledge by our entire management team to support employees and give them the unquestioned authority to demand safe work conditions, prevent hazards, correct deficiencies on the job or completely stop unsafe jobs. Our directive has been tested many times over the years, but has survived. We do realize, however, that tough economic times can affect workers personally, and they may become distracted on the job. Losing concentration can cause an injury, so we try to gear up the communication about being safe and staying focused on the job, and we use a variety of media to do so.

Staffieri: Being a committed safety leader is not easy. There are many demands on leadership. Foremost, management must sincerely care about the well-being of workers more than any other factor. Otherwise, the motivation to make safety a priority will not exist. As a result, employees will know the effort is not sincere. Winning employees' trust is critical in building a safety culture. A leader must "walk the talk" by demonstrating a focus on safety and a personal commitment to safe action. A leader should involve workers in the safety process and make them responsible for it. This not only shows the leader values employees' opinions, but provides the leader with invaluable information because workers know and can control hazards the best. The level of an individual's commitment will constantly be tested and measured by the people he or she leads. A true leader is always relentless, responsive and resilient when it comes to safety.