A Case for Upward Management

The ability to manage upward is a skill and it is as critical for good safety management as the ability to accurately identify risks. The safety related activities at the executive level influence the entire organization's efforts to manage safety. Therefore, safety professionals are encouraged by the fact that many executives are concerned about safety and most are committed to a low injury rate, but we cannot help but be concerned when these executives demonstrate that they do not adequately understand how to manage safety.

Notable indicators that executives still struggle with effective safety management include: their persistent reliance on Incident Rate as the sole adequate measure of safety; the practice of turning to the safety professionals rather than line management when injuries occur; the absence of a systematic process to integrate strategies for improving safety and productivity.

The Goals of Upward Management

Those who are committed to improving safety need to find ways to clarify the changes required to reach their ultimate goals and to find new ways to support the executives who can and must make those changes. At least three transitions are required:

  1. Safety professionals must become the technical advisors working as part of a team to drive improvement but must cease to be seen as the "Doers of Safety"

  2. Executives must develop new roles that transform them from givers of speeches about safety to true managers of safety

  3. Organizations must replace their reliance on Incident Rate as the sole measure of safety with a measurement system that predicts results and validates efforts

Executives expect their management teams to sufficiently understand their business to meet production and quality goals as well as controlling costs. Yet, they often accept senior management knowing minimal safety facts such as: the number of injuries sustained in their area over the past quarter, the number of safety meetings held or the number of managers who have developed a plan for improving safety. Conversely, executives expect the safety personnel to compile results and reports because they assume that it is appropriate for the safety department to actually "do" safety. When problems arise, many executives assume that the safety executive will lead the investigation and fix the problem. Although many safety directors see that this arrangement hinders safety goal attainment, it persists with only minor modifications.

As long as executives persist in holding their safety departments accountable for results that should be owned by line management, managers will continue to be less involved in safety than they are in productivity. Senior managers, like most people, prefer to focus on topics they understand and know how to manage. They are usually far more comfortable discussing the details of managing production issues because they have strong opinions and feel responsible for and proud of improvements.

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