Page 228 - Serious Incident Prevention How to Achieve and Sustain Accident-Free Operations in Your Plant or Company

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194 Serious Incident Prevention

and achieving effective teamwork. Resourcing the team with a trained fa-
cilitator and the formation of a steering team will provide guidance and help
assure that teams function efficiently and remain on the proper course.
After the serious incident prevention process is developed, the imple-
mentation team should take the lead in communicating the new process to
coworkers. Effective communications can be accomplished by scheduling
special meetings where hourly-roll and other implementation team mem-
bers take leadership roles in communicating the improved safety manage-
ment process to their coworkers. The objective of these kick-off meetings is
to educate all employees regarding the need for an improved process, how
the new process works, why it will be successful, the responsibilities of
each team member, and the benefits to be gained from implementation.
The list of critical work items, performance standards, and measure-
ment and feedback systems should be discussed in sufficient detail to
achieve a common understanding of the new safety-management process.
Participation of one or more top-level managers in the communications
meetings to endorse the implementation team’s work will help facilitate
successful implementation.
Following roll-out of the newly developed serious incident prevention
process, the ongoing involvement of all affected employees will remain crit-
ical to achieving and sustaining high levels of performance. Periodic re-
views to evaluate each of the eight process elements will help keep the
process fine-tuned and up-to-date. In striving for continual improvement,
managers must be diligent in maintaining the constancy of purpose and vis-
ible support needed for long-term success.

Taking the Step Forward

Implementation of a more effective safety management process can be
one of the most value-adding and personally satisfying initiatives possible
during a management career. Providing the leadership for implementation
of the eight-element serious incident prevention process will provide major
benefits to the organization for decades to come. It is the type of positive,
long-lasting change that legacies are made of.
It is time for more leaders to take the step forward. Breakthrough per-
formance is needed to further drive serious incidents toward extinction.
Managers must look beyond the daily pressures inherent in their jobs to im-
plement more effective processes for the prevention of incidents. Serious-
incident-free operation provides major benefits for all—employees and
their families, shareowners, customers, suppliers, and the public.