In this installment of EHSDA Shorts, Brandy Zadoorian, CSP, CSD, CEO and Principal Consultant, Triangle Safety Consulting LLC, and Brye Sargent, CSP, safety management coach and trainer, and owner, visionary, and content creator of The Safety Geek podcast, talk about how we can change management’s mindset regarding safety.
This clip was taken from a webinar titled “Panel Discussion: Who Should Handle Safety Training,” as part of EHS Safety Training Week 2024. The full session is available for FREE on-demand here.
The webinar was sponsored by Columbia Southern University, KPA, and Veriforce.
Transcript (edited for clarity):
Question: How can we change management’s mindset regarding safety?
Sargent: The way that I like to change mindset is to show the value that we provide because I believe safety is the most important department in an organization, because we positively affect every other department. We are the only ones that can say that. If we start showing our value and then really demonstrate why we cannot be the people managing safety, we can only be the people influencing safety, that they will eventually change their mindset on it. They have to see all the positives and all of the different actions that they’re doing. So that’s why I believe like our safety initiatives and our safety training, we need to build a business case for that and give them an ROI on that that is above and beyond a reduction in accidents. Because executives, yes, they do not want somebody killed over creating their widget, but they also have a million other goals that they’re trying to reach. So how can you relate your safety efforts to their goals? And then once you do that, you get a bigger ROI. And then they see like, oh, safety should be involved in these decisions because they’re going to improve our bottom line overall.