IN THIS ISSUE

Inc. Magazine Features Quality Safety Edge

Quality Safety Edge has garnered some positive media attention recently. In an Inc. Magazine article presenting America’s 5000 fastest growing companies, QSE was listed as number 1669 in 2008.

In addition, we were listed as number 35 in a list of the 50 fastest growing companies in Houston. While there are several factors that have contributed to our growth, the strengthening worldwide movement to ensure employee health and well being has fueled an increased interest in the Values Based Safety Process®.

We are excited by our growth, and feel privileged to have the opportunity to help a larger number of client companies protect their employees from injury. Although the business community may measure our success in dollars, we measure our success by the results we obtain with our clients – the data that tell us their employees are working more safely and being injured less often.

Safety Champ at Western Energy

Nora Buchholz (second from left) and her safety colleagues at The Rosebud Mine

Nora Buchholz, Safety Manager for Western Energy at The Rosebud Mine, near Colstrip, Montana, is a true Safety Champion. Implementing the Values Based Safety Process at a large surface coal mine has proven to be both incredibly challenging and rewarding for Nora. The mine operates 24-hours a day, with four rotating shifts of employees. Nora hopes that implementing the VBSP will continue to strengthen the trust between employees and management at the mine, since employee involvement is crucial. Says Nora, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Some Client Comments about the
Values-Based Safety Process

Safety Champ at Foster Wheeler

Donna Armstrong, Values Based Safety Coordinator, BSMART, Foster Wheeler (Houston)

Donna Armstrong is our Safety Champion at Foster Wheeler in Houston, Texas. Foster Wheeler, an engineering and construction company, began designing their BSMART (Behavioral Safety Management and Recognition Techniques) process in 2006 during a period of rapid expansion for the company. Donna has been invaluable to the company's challenging implementation process from the start.

For Donna, volunteering is an important part of life at home and at work, and she explained simply having a "natural instinct to volunteer." When the company asked for employee involvement in the safety process, she immediately jumped at the opportunity. A VBSP training session, headed by Dr. Grainne Matthews, really "struck a chord" with her, and as she learned more she became invested in the VBSP and dedicated herself to its success at Foster Wheeler.

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Some Client Comments about the Observation and Feedback Video Series

• “I’ve reviewed hundreds of training videos and this is one of the best; it’s short, clear and to the point.” – International security provider
• “I think it’s a great program; more practical than most I’ve seen.” – Utility provider
• “I really liked the video; it was one of the very few I actually enjoyed.” – Heavy equipment manufacturer Inc.
• “Very professional; I think it’s good information; especially for manufacturing.” – Metal fabricators
• “A perfect fit for our program; it’s surprisingly thorough and we liked how Terry reinforces each step and demonstrates how to apply it.” – Manufacturer of motion and control technologies
• “It’s ideal for our workforce; the real-life workplace examples reinforce the message in a way that’s easy for them to understand.” – Coal mining industry
• “Very professional; I thought he presented the material very effective.” – Heavy construction company

Safety Leaders Take an
Active Interest in Their Employees

by Jerry Pounds

Jerry Pounds is Senior Vice President - International at Quality Safety Edge, and publishes a blog on positive leadership.

The shelves of America’s largest bookstores are being continually stocked with new books about leadership. It has become a national preoccupation – management consultants, corporate trainers and public workshop providers are very busy selling leadership interventions. America is hungry for leaders and there is a leadership theory that fits every perspective. Companies seeking to turn managers into leaders will find a consultant or workshop that suits their taste.

There are so many choices, you don’t know which book to read and it is hard to decide if one or the other book is right or wrong. They all seem to make sense, but most of these books portray a good leader as someone who has skills, assets, traits and abilities that are superhuman. Can one realistically expect to learn how to do and be all these wonderful things – a superleader?

Safety opens the door to discussion – it is the perfect ice breaker. If you want to develop your leadership skills, to become actively interested – if you want to improve your ability to influence the safety and performance of your direct reports – you can start the conversation with a topic that is relevant to everyone…all the time…safety. If it is important enough for you to stop and talk to them about, then it establishes its importance and the value that it has for the organization. The things supervisors talk to their employees about become the performance priorities that guide their job behavior.

Employees judge whether you value them and their work by the active interest you show in the daily issues that influence their performance. They judge the importance of safety and safe behavior using the same standard. The best safety leaders talk to employees – and safety is the topic that opens the discussion.

President's Column, by Terry McSween, Ph.D. Self-Observation

Many of today’s organizations have employees who work independently, either alone or in small crews. Examples of such positions include nurses involved with home health care or hospice, utility linemen, utility meter readers, gas company employees working pipeline, delivery drivers, and many others. In such organizations, a self-observation process is often a better fit and easier to sustain than peer observations. A recent review of the literature by Ryan Olsen in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management reports surprisingly strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of self-observations. Unfortunately, the research does not provide clear evidence on the components required to ensure an effective process. I would like to discuss the options and suggest some of the elements that our experience at QSE suggests are important to ensuring the success and maintenance of such efforts.

Self-observations differ from peer observations in several ways. One of the first differences in my experience is the safety checklist itself – self-assessment checklists are often much shorter than peer observation checklists. Second, the observations are usually prompted, or signaled, in some way. Typically, someone, often a supervisor, dispatcher, or administrative support person contacts the employee by cell phone, by radio, or by beeper, to prompt the observation. Often, if the employee is driving, he or she would complete the self-observation checklist when they arrive at their destination, though they might record what they observed when the call was received. In other circumstances, when employees are working in small crews, they might follow a similar procedure. Again, they receive some kind of agreed upon signal, then at their next stopping point, they conduct a safety huddle and complete a self-assessment checklist on the job they were doing. Generally, an effort is made to randomize the time and day of the call with each employee getting a call at some point during the week.

One of the things that I have found interesting is that some organizations are reluctant to promote a self-observation process. My experience is that those that give it a try, find that they can easily promote and sustain a simple self-observation process, and more importantly, that the process helps them reduce or eliminate injuries.