Landfill Insights | Creating a great safety culture

Lots of folks talk about the importance of a great safety culture, what it is and how to have one. I guess that’s no surprise, seeing as how the solid waste industry currently ranks as the fourth most dangerous in the U.S. right after those who fish commercially, fly for a living or do roofing.

Unfortunately, much of the discussion about safety culture is heavy on philosophy and light on practical application.

I believe all managers want a great safety culture where the organization’s safety policies and procedures effectively are translated into safe practices. They want it to happen; they just don’t know how to do it.

So, let’s begin this discussion by defining the term “safety culture.” Some say it’s the organization’s collective attitude. For others, it might be the overall attitude of the workers. Finally, some might just say, our culture is how we do things here. Those are nice ideas, but they are no less vague than saying the annual budget is hefty or the weather is decent. It’s a description, but it is not measurable, and it won’t keep your workers safe.

I’d like to introduce you to a better yardstick for measuring your organization’s safety culture. For the past several years, I’ve been using a tool developed by DuPont in 2018. The Bradley Curve is a more descriptive way of ranking the safety culture of an organization. Here’s how it works.

First is the Reactive stage, which is based solely on a person’s natural instinct for survival. In this category, management provides little support. While a written safety plan likely exists, it lives on the shelf and is referenced only rarely for new employees and the occasional token safety meeting. If your safety culture is Reactive, workers protect themselves from obvious dangers. They might obey safety rules when a manager is watching, but only to avoid discipline. For the most part, safety is no more than a slogan, and nobody really cares much beyond that. In the Reactive phase, it’s every man for himself, and safety is somebody else’s job.

Second is the Dependent stage. Organizations in this category generally have a higher level of management support, with a written safety plan and regular safety meetings. Safety is practiced, especially when someone is watching. Workers know about safety policies, they understand that they are a condition of employment and they generally will follow the rules because they are rules; they do not understand or engage with why those rules are in place. Folks come to work, they do their job and they go home.

In the third stage, we’re starting to see a glimmer of hope. We might even call it enthusiasm. This is the Self or the Dependent stage. In this scenario, a good safety program is in place with strong management involvement. When it comes to the safety plan, workers know about it, they follow it and they recognize that those safety programs and standard operating procedures have a purpose. They follow the organization’s safety policies because those policies can keep them safe. They wear their safety vests and hard hats because they don’t want to get hurt. Same thing for the seat belt. They follow the safety rules because they know those rules can keep them safe.

Finally, the fourth stage—Teams—represents a great safety culture. It’s everything we had in the third stage and more. Workers have advanced to the point where they understand the safety policies and are glad to follow the rules because the rules make sense. Workers don’t have to memorize the safety rules; they have synthesized them. They’ve made them a habit—a good habit. But, more importantly, they are concerned about the safety of other workers and nonworkers. Their attitude is, “All for one and one for all.” They work together as a team, with their co-workers and management, and they keep each other safe.

In the fourth stage, workers go out of their way to make sure others are safe. They get involved to the point that individual workers could facilitate a weekly safety meeting. They remind each other to work safely. They pay attention to near misses, and they bring suggestions to management to make things even better.

A stage four organization has a healthy pride because every worker is part of a great safety culture, they are part of the team, sort of like reaching the playoffs after a long season.

To reach the fourth stage as defined by the Bradley Curve and have the great safety culture folks talk about, everyone must want it.

Management must create the policies and ensure the right tools are available for workers. Those tools could include providing safe, well-maintained equipment; appropriate personal protective equipment; and training that is practical, relatable and applicable. Bootlegging a safety video from parks and rec doesn’t help solid waste workers. They need training that speaks about the job they do every day.

Here’s how it works. Management establishes overarching policies for the entire organization that might include a landfill, transfer station, collections or other operations. That single injury and illness prevention programs, or IIPP, in Occupational Safety and Health Administration terms, is an umbrella over the entire organization and sets goals for training, recordkeeping, accident investigation, tracking near misses and other high-level guidelines. It’s like a mission statement for your organization’s safety goals. An internet search will yield a good outline for an IIPP.

Next, those general policies are translated into more specific procedures through the health and safety plan, or HASP. Each facility should have its own very specific HASP because this is where management establishes the details of how to conduct a pretrip inspection, pick up residential carts, push a load of trash or recycle cardboard. Your HASP provides more detailed policies necessary to achieve regulatory compliance and meet a wide range of industry safety standards.

The IIPP tells us what to do, and the HASP tells us how to do it. Think of it as the difference between strategic and tactical.

Finally, the HASP must be further distilled into standard operating procedures, or SOPs. SOPs provide every worker with job-specific instructions on how to perform every task in their job description. When it comes to conquering the safety challenge from policy to procedure to practice, SOPs are the point of the spear.

Workers also want it, but their role differs from management. Management creates the setting, and workers do their part by honest participation. Theirs is a role of compliance, following the lead set by management. In the beginning, workers sometimes just need to be obedient to the safety program.

This is no easy task because change is very difficult for most people, even when it’s in their best interest to make those changes. I regularly hear workers say, “I don’t want to change. I’ve been doing it this way for 30 years and never had a problem.” Likely they have. But that doesn’t mean they are safe or efficient. Maybe they’ve just been lucky.

Neal Bolton is president of Blue Ridge Services Montana Inc. He has been providing safety support and improving solid waste operations for more than 47 years. Contact him at neal@blueridgeservices.com.