An innovative approach to creating a global safety culture

Creating and sustaining a high-performance culture is critical to the safety and well-being of your people. It also plays a vital role in the long-term success, productivity, and financial stability of business. Extensive research conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business found that 92% of executives believe there is a strong relationship between a company’s culture and its enterprise value. However, only 16%  of those leaders believe their culture is where they want it to be. The truth is, a cohesive, aligned organizational culture is difficult to articulate and even harder to create in today’s multicultural, multilingual businesses.

Many of the organizations we partner with have already begun to implement custom-built safety culture approaches. They are committed to making safety a value across every aspect of their organization and ensuring everyone goes home safely at the end of every shift even in the most challenging environments. However, even the most meticulously-planned safety programs can prove problematic when large numbers of employees and contractors in multiple locations are involved.

This was the case with our client, a global communications infrastructure firm. Following an increase in fatalities involving contractors, leadership was committed to changing the safety culture. To begin with, they had hoped to address this serious issue with process based HSE improvements focusing on contractors. However, they soon realized that the root of the problem was closer to home and their first step should be to elevate their internal leadership and safety culture. With people working in remote locations and significant variance in safety conditions, culture, and work regulations, communicating a ‘one team’ safety culture required an innovative approach.

We worked closely with the communications infrastructure firm to co-design bespoke online safety culture workshops that incorporated their own content. In phase one of the program, over 200 virtual workshops were delivered to 2,000 employees in multiple languages, with more than 350 additional sessions planned. The success will be replicated in two further phases. These will be delivered online and onsite to address the challenges of specific regions and bring suppliers into our client’s ‘Journey to Zero’.

Read the case study and learn more about our client’s safety journey.

If you would like to discuss your organization’s safety challenges, our global culture transformation consultants are available for a no-obligation chat. Contact us.