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Can You Hear Me Now? Conversations not Assumptions

7/24/2015

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Normally, you assess an organization’s safety culture by observing how employees translate the company’s principles, values, attitudes, and goals into their behavior and decision-making.

This seems like a pretty straightforward method, but beware of drawing conclusions based only on observations—you’ll fall into the assumptions trap. 

I’ve fallen into this myself by relying on direct observations and reports consisting of data based on observations, and I suspect I am not alone. The assumptions trap is a consequence of the way in which the human brain forms patterns to help us manage a complicated life more efficiently.

Patterns feed our assumptions. They help us react, predict and make decisions regarding situations without having to assemble and sift through all of the details of what we are observing. The problem is the brain has no investment in making distinctions between fact and fiction. It takes in what it sees, dismisses what doesn’t fit, and draws a conclusion as expeditiously as possible. It will even add in data to fill any gaps just to complete the picture to fit the established pattern. This works very well when we need to slam on the brakes to avoid a child who darts into the road. However, this process has limits when used exclusively to assess or make assumptions about the effectiveness of a safety culture.

David McLean, Chief Operating Officer for Maersk, expressed this realization in his article “The Importance Of Process Safety & Promoting A Culture of PSM.”

“We were all very good at measuring personal safety performance, i.e. slips, trips, and falls, and this is very tangible, but did a good personal safety record mean we had a safe operation? Clearly not, as several major accidents had proven.”

Avoid the Assumptions Trap by Engaging in Conversations

“Can you hear me now?” was the key refrain from a Verizon commercial a few years ago. If you listen, you can hear employees using this same refrain in regard to their relationship with their managers.

“They never listen to us, and when they do, they don’t hear what we are saying,” I’ve heard employees say. “They already have their minds made up.”

Consider for a moment that managers spend 75% to 90% of their time in conversations! Who are they having these conversations with? And are they really listening or just filling in the gaps of existing beliefs and patterns? To understand and know one’s culture you must listen to it—not just to the words but also to the emotional texture of the words. A safety culture is created, nurtured and sustained by the breath and quality of the conversations that take place and the ones that don’t. 

“What people say and what they withhold matters,” said David Arella, founder and CEO of 4Spires. “Language trumps control. How the communication is initiated and conducted is often more important than what is communicated. An organization is a network of person-to-person work conversations during which information and energy is exchanged. Like cells in your body, the quality of these work-atoms determines the effectiveness of the whole. Attending to and influencing work conversations can help transform culture and improve collaboration.”

The true nature of a culture is revealed through its conversations. If you want to understand your culture before making assumptions about your culture’s strengths and weaknesses—what motivates employees and what’s in their hearts and minds—you must engage in open and honest talk. Conversations can help give meaning to observations.

Culture is made up of layers of conversations that are constantly vibrating and emitting information. Learning to notice and listen to these waves of information is a critical culture competency. It requires that leaders be committed to moving through the casual and superficial noise in order to gain insight into the organization’s authentic culture and discern what is really motivating employee performance.

Don’t Use Data: How to assess your safety culture more effectively

Edgar H. Schein, PhD, considered to be one of the foremost experts on organizational culture, believes that if you want to access your organization’s culture, bring together a group of employees who represent each part of the organization and provide an opportunity for them to dialogue about their issues, concerns, and the strengths and weaknesses they experience and perceive in the safety culture.

Here is a simple but effective model to help organizations assess and transform their safety culture. It calls for leaders, managers, supervisors, and employees to engage in authentic conversations in which each can express and share their concerns and build the trust required to move forward.

Leaders frequently expressed that they had reservations about engaging in these conversations, particularly those that reached below the surface. They preferred to use a survey (hard data). But after working with this model, not only did they obtain the data they wanted; they gained the commitment they needed from employees to work toward common goals.

The following questions can help assess if your have a culture that values conversations or if it is reliant on assumptions and patterns.

·      Is it like pulling teeth to get employees to talk in meetings?

·      How often do safety leaders practice walking and talking about the site?

·      Is the word stupid—or a similar insult—ever used to describe safety incidents or the employee involved?

·      What emotion(s) best describes the mood of the safety culture? Frustration, boredom, disappointment—or excitement, curiosity, and passion?

·      Do managers abhor meetings and feel that they are a waste of time?

·      How often have employee safety recommendations been implemented?

This self-assessment will begin to give you an indication if the conditions of your safety culture are conducive to meaningful dialogue; if it encourages open and honest conversations or stifles it.

A word of caution though: Just because employees may be reluctant to engage in conversations doesn’t mean they don’t want to be heard. Their behavior may be more about their lack of trust, fear of blame, or a result of previous conversations that resulted in a negative experience.  

A positive safety culture is a repeatedly observant one, not just of behavior but also of its tone and content. Safety leaders would be well served to develop a practice of deeply listening and observing before making assessments and judgments.


Contact Tom Wojick for more information on how to introduce conversations into your culture
401-525-0309
twojick@verizon.net



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Six Steps To A Positive Safety Culture

5/27/2015

27 Comments

 
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For many years my client relied on rules, procedures, and safety programs to engage employees in adopting and practicing safe behaviors. This strategy was met with some success, but fell far below the expectations of  managers and employees. And then reality hit home.  Two very serious accidents in six months created a period of self-examination - everyone knew something was missing and changes were needed.

What was missing was commitment, ownership, and intrinsic employee motivation to embrace and practice safety everyday. At the time, the company’s culture did not influence, encourage, or motivate employees to believe or trust that safety was valued by the organization. 

For safety to become the most valued trait, employees needed to trust that management’s actions would be consistent with its words. Safety needed to be more than a slogan; it needed to be management’s primary consideration.

The solution was not to develop more rules and programs; it required a change in the culture to one that authentically valued safety. The first step in this transition was for management to unequivocally commit to a process of change. Most importantly, they needed to convey the WHY—why was the organization changing? — and it needed to come from the heart.

The Shift – Safety is Our Keystone Value

The process of transitioning from a procedures and programs approach to a culture of safety began when management created and committed to a new Safety Charter. The charter articulated the organization’s dedication to safety and clearly articulated how management would fulfill this commitment.

However, words, principles, and documents are only as valuable as the actions they inspire. With the Safety Charter, a system was created that would engage employees in a continuous process of improvement, accountability, feedback, and dialogue. This process would become the organization’s Vital Signs System, a means of continuously checking the strength of the safety cultures’ heartbeat. 

Listening to the Heartbeat of the Culture

 
The Vital Signs System is made up of Five Pulse Points, which are structured re-occurring meetings and sessions in which employees and managers have the opportunity to engage with each other in open and honest conversations. In these meetings, they can discuss the positive and negative experiences, perceptions, and concerns they have about the growth and health of the safety culture. 

Description of the Vital Signs Systems

The Vital Signs system is designed to provide regular feedback from all employees. This helps management monitor and improve the functioning of all safety programs, and helps them gauge employees’ levels of commitment and engagement.

The system utilizes a process of generative feedback, input, and assessment through a structure consisting of five components, or pulse points:

Site Safety Committee (1): A multi-disciplinary group of employees that review input generated from employees, engagement sessions, and other relevant sources. Serving as a safety advisory group for site management, it establishes priorities and coordinates and implements initiatives and policies to address safety issues and concerns.

Site Monthly Safety Meeting (2): A site-wide community meeting held to inform, update, review, and communicate relevant safety performance information. This is  a meeting in which managers role model their commitment to the Safety Charter, specifically its values and principles. A key function is to establish the reasoning and context for upcoming activities, changes, priorities, and expectations that have been set by the Site Safety Committee.

Safety Engagements (3): Engagements are a critical link between management and line employees. Engagements are weekly small team/department meetings that encourage discussion on safety topics and invite feedback on safety issues. A key function of the sessions is to assess employee engagement with safety, listen for concerns affecting safety performance, clarify policy and procedures, and focus on activities that were identified as priorities or expectations in the site monthly safety meeting and the site safety committee.

Managers Safety Dialogue Sessions (4): Organizational leaders/managers are the embodiment of the safety culture. Therefore each manager’s degree of commitment, consistency, competence and caring for the intent, spirit and behavior required and expected by the Safety Charter is paramount to the viability of a healthy safety culture. The dialogue session provides the opportunity for managers to assess the commitment amongst their peers learn from each other’s experiences and share best practices and concerns.

Employee Vital Signs Sessions (5): These are meetings of various employee groups that convene with the express intent of soliciting and listening to each other’s experiences, concerns, appreciations, and suggestions regarding the safety culture. The site’s management and the Site Safety Committee review each group’s feedback for appropriate responses and actions.

Programs Manifest the Culture

A positive safety culture utilizes a number of leading indicator safety programs and initiatives, which serve to:

·      Increase awareness and understanding of safety risks and hazards (Near miss reporting)

·      Prevent safety incidents from occurring (Job Safety Analysis & Management of change process)

·      Implement a robust employee identification of risks and hazards program

·      Engage all employees in being proactive and accountable for their personal safety practices and for their co-workers and contractors (Vital Signs System.

·      Train managers and supervisors on the art and science of listening, inviting feedback and input and responding.

These programs derive their meaning from the Safety Charter and the culture, and can be used to assess the level of ownership and commitment to safety by employees.

Six Steps Summary:


No slogan, practice, rule, procedure, or program is sufficient to create, maintain, and sustain a safety culture. A safety culture requires a full commitment to values and principles that apply to all employees. These values motivate desired behaviors to achieve a vision.

•       Face the reality that rules, procedures and programs are not a substitute for culture

•       Examine and assess your culture for inconsistencies. Is saying one thing , but its actions convey something different.

•       Establish the direction and commitment for change through a Safety Charter process. 

•       Create a Vital Signs System (Flywheel) to build and sustain the momentum of the change process. 

•       Train managers and supervisors in the art and science of listening, inviting feedback and input and responding.

•       Implement, improve and emphasize programs that are designed to articulate the values and the principles of the culture 

For this company, the impetus for change came with the realization that rules and programs do not make a culture. The organization’s Safety Charter, which is the heart of the safety culture and sets expectations for all employees, was where this change began. The Vital Signs System was the flywheel that provided continuous feedback and input, making employees critical stakeholders in their safety culture, and it’s what keeps the company’s momentum for growth and improvement moving.

In concert with the leading indicator initiatives, the Safety Charter and Vitals Signs System created a proactive safety culture, which sustains  employee engagement, commitment, and ownership to this day.

 

 


 


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Standing Up For Safety - An Act of Moral Courage

4/28/2015

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Don't Fall Into the Assumptions Trap: Your Safety Culture Thrives on Conversations

4/10/2015

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ROI - A Hazard To Employee Safety?

4/4/2015

22 Comments

 
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A familiar and popular business performance metric is ROI—Return on Investment. For many, this is the keystone of workplace culture, driving business strategy and decisions as well as the behavior of managers and employees.

Most businesses won’t invest capital or other resources unless there is a direct positive financial gain from the investment. It’s a no brainer—if a business wants to be successful and remain viable, it must generate a return. But is there a dark side to ROI?

Balancing ROI and ROS
There is a performance metric that is as critical to organizational success as ROI: ROS—Return on Safety.

Providing a healthy balance to ROI, ROS (#returnonsafety) is a metric that applies to every business, though it carries particular significance in manufacturing and production industries such as oil and gas, transportation, chemical, farming, and recycling. In these workplaces, humans interact closely with heavy machinery and hazardous substances, and it is not an unproven theory that focusing too intently on ROI can affect employee safety and decisions as well as organizational success.

In the last five years we’ve witnessed tragedies that serve as prime examples of what happens when organizations’ focus on ROI is dominant:

Upper Big Branch Mine (29 miners killed): A final report on the West Virginia tragedy indicated that Massey Energy had a culture of willful disregard for safety in favor of optimized profit and production.

Deepwater Horizon drilling platform explosion (11 workers killed): A statement from the final report noted that “the culture of safety is less strong than the imperative to meet deadlines, what has been referred to in the Deepwater Report by the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management as an ‘imbalance between production and protection’” (Forbes.com, 11/28/2012).

General Motors’ faulty ignition switch (31 deaths): Began with an ignition switch that was found to be defective in 2001. GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, stated to a congressional committee investigating the failure, "The customer and their safety are at the center of everything we do." Yet, GM’s own internal investigation, The Volukas Report, noted that there were conflicting messages regarding ROI and safety: “Two clear messages were consistently emphasized from the top: 1) ‘When safety is at issue, cost is irrelevant’ and 2) ‘Cost is everything.’” One engineer said that the emphasis on cost control at GM “permeates the fabric of the whole culture.”

The Price of Imbalance

The cost of these disasters combined is estimated to top 50 billion dollars. But the real tragedy is that as many as 71 people lost their lives because employee safety became an afterthought, or was never a priority to begin with.

This is the dark side of ROI. Could a culture that focuses on ROS, instead, have prevented these disasters? Most experts and authorities say yes.

Peter Kelly-Detwiler’s 2012 Forbes article, “BP Deepwater Horizon Arraignment: A Culture That ‘Forgot to be Afraid,’” addresses not just the Deepwater Horizon disaster but others as well:

“The gist of all of these inquiries and reports is pretty much the same: repetition, complacency, complicated technology, and a poor culture of safety combined with the production/protection imbalance is a recipe for failure. This can generally be remedied by the appropriate focus on best available safety practices and technology.”

Calculating the Worth of ROS

ROS as a metric is not as easy to calculate as ROI. It doesn’t show up in quarterly profit and loss statements and if it does its typically as an expense, therefore organizations have difficulty assessing its value to the bottom line—something many CEOs, under pressure from shareholders and the financial markets, can’t see beyond.

Instead, ROS requires leaders to have a vision that extends beyond quarterly reports. These men and women must have a steadfast commitment to safety, the courage to confront the short-term thinking of Wall Street, and a willingness to reject the idea that production and profit achieved at the expense of employee safety is a sustainable business strategy. 

Leaders who respect the value proposition of ROS understand how intimately safety is related to quality, reputation, efficiency, innovation, and worker engagement and loyalty.

 

How One Company Benefitted

Paul O’Neill, CEO of Alcoa from 1987-2000, was a leader who understood ROS and had the foresight to make it his keystone business philosophy and strategy.

In “How Changing One Habit Helped Quintuple Alcoa’s Income,” Drake Baer writes:

“The emphasis on safety made an impact. Over O'Neill's tenure, Alcoa dropped from 1.86 lost work days to injury per 100 workers to 0.2. By 2012, the rate had fallen to 0.125. 

  “Surprisingly, that impact extended beyond worker health. One year after O'Neill's speech, the company's profits hit a record high. 

“Focusing on that one critical metric, or what (writer Charles) Duhigg refers to as a ‘keystone habit,’ created a change that rippled through the whole culture.  Duhigg says the focus on worker safety led to an examination of an inefficient manufacturing process—one that made for suboptimal aluminum and danger for workers. 

“By changing the safety habits, O'Neill improved several processes in the organization. When he retired, 13 years later, Alcoa's annual net income was five times higher than when he started.”

An ROS mindset instills organizational leaders with the compassion, courage, and values of a Paul O’Neill. To assess the balance and tension between ROI and ROS in your business, review the following list.  

10 warning signs your culture is ROI-influenced:

1)   The person who is responsible for safety does not report directly to the CEO

2)   The CEO and managers rarely discuss safety at strategy, HR, production, quality, and sales and marketing meetings.

3)   The company’s safety vision is not linked to the business strategy or worst it is non-existent.

4)   Managers throughout the organization fail to consistently emphasize safety or are resistant to safety initiatives.

5)   The organization has few if any feedback loops for continuous safety improvement.

6)   Metrics used to evaluate individual and team performance have minimal to no weight placed on safety.

7)   Employees are not familiar or are skeptical of the sincerity regarding the company’s safety vision and values.

8)   Training and development do not emphasize safety.

9)   New employees and contractors are not first and formally introduced and oriented to the organizations safety vision and values.

10)                   Employees are fearful of negative repercussions for reporting safety incidents, risks, and hazards.

This is just the beginning though. Truly understanding what drives your business requires a more nuanced and careful approach than checking some boxes. I’ve seen many situations in which the person responsible for EHS reported directly to the CEO yet felt disrespected and undervalued, and vice versa. Assessing the motives of any organization requires a hard look at these relationships.

Ultimately, an organization that creates a culture more heavily influenced by ROI than safety cannot ensure success for its shareholders or stakeholders. Choosing to gamble the health and wellbeing of employees for production and profit, these businesses will always be a risky—not reputable or ethical—investment.

ROS-Return on Safety C The Renewal Group 2015

References and Acknowledgements:

Volukas Report: http://www.autonews.com/article/20140605/OEM11/140609893/read-gms-internal-report-from-investigator-anton-valukas-here

I want to acknowledge Hugo Moreno’s article, “10 Warning Signs of a Weak Culture of Quality” (Forbes Insight), which provided the basis for the checklist used in this article


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Organizational Engagement: Starting Your Own Concern Movement

11/14/2014

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I can’t seem to get through a page of John Gardner’s book Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society—which is full of lessons, advice and wisdom on the nature and nurturing of self-renewal—without being struck by a concept that resonates deeply. The following is just one example:

“For every citizen movement that changes the course of history, there are many thousands that hardly create a ripple. The few movements that survive are those that speak to the authentic concerns of substantial numbers of people.”

Immediately, names like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and Harvey Milk come to mind. These individuals were able to profoundly articulate the authentic human and civil rights concerns of millions of disaffected people, and because of this they became leaders within movements that changed societies.

The ability to sense, understand and authentically communicate the concerns of others is the core of leadership, and it’s as important in leading organizations as it is in large-scale societal change, because at the heart of all workplaces are people with concerns.

An alternative perspective on engagement


Organizations that achieve high levels of employee engagement experience superior results in many critical performance and success metrics, including revenue. And yet for many leaders, engendering deep levels of stakeholder engagement appears to be a difficult challenge. Too often I’ve heard leadership teams, when considering an engagement effort, say, “You can never satisfy them; if we change, they’ll only find something else to complain about.” This perspective of engagement, about giving in or giving up something, is a formula for failure.

An alternative perspective that I recommend to leaders is to frame engagement as a “concern movement”: a process of recognizing and attending to the mutual concerns of both management and employees.

The foundation of a concern movement


In his book Moral Courage, Rushworth Kidder identifies the values of honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness, and compassion as core human values. The foundation of a concern movement starts with a focus on these five universally accepted values, which, when invoked and practiced by leaders, speak to the essence of human concerns.

Honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness, and compassion transcend all cultural and organizational demographics. When they flourish, so does human engagement. To build a culture of engagement, organizations must integrate these values into the “why” and “how” they lead and the structures and systems of their operation.

This approach doesn’t require a leader to be a great orator, or to risks one’s safety for a movement—but it does require that you recognize and understand your stakeholders’ concerns and to be able to authentically resonate with their concerns.

Values are the powerful “why” that influence what people do and how they do it. Try delivering bad news to your organization without respect and compassion; it will inflame passions, kill engagement, or both. When employees perceive their organization to have a disregard for basic human values, it takes a toll on organizational results.

On the other hand, the benefits of employee engagement are well documented, and the road to engagement is paved with core human values. Organizations willing to walk the walk and talk the talk and start their own concern movement will succeed—both personally and as a whole.

 

 


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The Power of Story Telling in a Safety First Culture

10/21/2014

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After finishing my presentation “What’s Your Safety Story?” at a recent safety conference, a participant came up and shared that his son had been deeply affected during a safety meeting at work by the tragic story of a young man, Clifton.

  “He was standing in front of his team, relaying Clifton’s story to them, when he was forced to just stop and walk away,” his father told me. “He asked the attendees at the safety meeting to continue reading because he could no longer force the words out of his mouth.”

His son, overcome with emotion, had tried to share Clifton’s story. It was a story told by the victim’s mother about her son Clifton’s struggle for life, and it conveyed the anguish and terror that filled her heart as she prayed for his survival. Seventy–five percent of Clifton’s body was traumatically burned by molten steel.

Clifton’s story, unfortunately, is one of the many tragic accidents that occur in industrial plants throughout the world. When these powerful stories are shared, they bring the storyteller and the listener into an intimate relationship in which they both experience the story as if it is their own. Everyone who was present at that safety meeting will forever remember that moment. They will remember the story and they will remember the storyteller, and most importantly it will change how they approach their work.

Sharing stories is an emotional and physical bonding experience that has helped humans navigate a dangerous world for thousands of years. To this day, stories are one of the most effective methods of teaching, learning, engaging, motivating, and inspiring people to change.  Stories form, transform, and help sustain all cultures, and they are the essence of a Safety First Culture.

I like to say that stories are what transform a house into a home. And they are what make an organization a community. Too many organizations are experts at just talking the talk (“Safety is our first priority!”); when you listen and look below the surface of these businesses, that’s when you hear the cynical stories among employees about how money rules everything.

These organizations are easy to identify because they are devoid of stories that genuinely demonstrate their espoused values. Organizations that walk their talk are consistently full of stories that convey how they walk and talk at the same time.

If you want your organization to be a Safety First Culture, start by crafting the story you want your employees to carry with them as they start and end each day.   As Ryan Matthews and Watts Wacker wrote in What’s Your Story?, “Long before the first formal business was established … the six most powerful words in any language were Let me tell you a story.”

For more information on how to create a story-rich Safety First Culture in your workplace, contact
Tom Wojick

twojick@verizon.net
401-525-0309


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Clifton's Story

10/21/2014

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  My son Clifton Wright, age 20 was in an accident at work today. Hot molten steel poured onto his body. He has burns on 75% of his body. He was airlifted to BAMC in SA. We are told he will be here 2-3 months with many surgeries, the first being Tues or Wed.

Just saw Clifton. He squeezed our hand when we talked to him.


Dr. Briefly stopped by. He said Clifton is off pressure drugs and holding his own on blood pressure. His kidneys are also functioning ok. Surgery will probably be Wednesday This is good news, my baby is a fighter.

Just saw Clifton he is looking better. Vitals look good as well.

Clifton is going into surgery. Possible bowel blockage. If it is and they can repair it will be done, if too much bowel is damaged unfortunately there is nothing else they can do for him.

PLEASE PRAY HARD.

Clifton accepted Christ as his personal savior sometime ago. Uncle Charles, deacon baptized him a few minutes ago

He is now on full life support! Please pray hard it’s minute by minute

The doctors have done everything. The next hours will tell if my baby will make it.

Clifton remained in the same condition last night. They are going to do surgery to check the bowels again.
This should give them answers.

Clifton is not doing well... He is now in surgery to have left/ maybe right also leg amputated. He is extremely high risk and we pray this will save his life. The doctors td us if we didn't he would only live 12-24 hours. PLEASE PRAY FOR MY BABY!!!!!!
Well my baby had his left leg amputated at the knee today. He is doing okay thus far. Tonight the team is going to try weaning him off some meds. The coloring looks good on his face. He needs to build his strength to get ready for next surgery.

Goodnight Suggie Woogie Boogie Bear! Mommy and Daddy are both sleeping in waiting room tonight. We love you!

Another day...... no matter what the day holds, my baby is here another day. Last night we actually slept at the hotel. Then I overslept, rushed to get to the hospital to see Clifton for the early morning visitation. He is still on life support. This morning he is stable enough to move to have a cat scan done. Please pray that we will get good news. I have to remind myself to take baby steps. Patience is not my virtue, so the Lord is teaching me what patience is! I love you Clifton Alexander Wright. Be strong today and fight like we know you can

It is with heavy heart to say my baby has left us!

I woke this morning with such a heavy heart. The reality is setting in. I can hear Clifton clearly saying "It's going to be ok mom", but I just cant see how!

We have to make arrangements that I don't want to make

Today we begin "the formal process" of saying goodbye. I am so torn. I want to get this over, but on the other hand, I do not want to face today.

Everywhere I look, I see his face smiling at me, sometimes in a picture but always in my mind and heart.

I know somehow, we will make it through today, as in our hearts, we know we will be reunited again. However, it doesn't make this much easier.

One week ago today, my baby woke me up and said "Happy Birthday Mom, I Love You!" What a great gift I was given to carry me through my life without him! Of course I told him I loved him too. Daddy told him as well.

I thank God that we have that. That morning we reminded each other of our love for one another. Little did we know that my baby would never come home again.

We have been so blessed with support from family, friends, co-workers of ours and Clifton's, our community and from complete strangers. I ask each of you to please continue to pray for us. Today and tomorrow are going to be so hard. I know we will see many of you in the coming days, and I might not have the strength then, so please let me tell you now, Thank you.

When Clifton was in high school he participated in the Shattered Dreams program. As part of that, George, Clifton and I had to write goodbye letters. We thought that was the hardest thing we had ever done. Last night, I had to write my goodbye letter, for real, to Clifton. I wish I could say it is the hardest thing I have ever done, but over this last week and in the days to come, I have done and will face worst.
Well, tonight I hope I can rest, as tomorrow is going to be a long day. The day we lay my baby to rest. I know it's just his body, as he is in heaven looking down on us.

Deep breath, deep breath, deep breath! I am as ready as I will ever be to face today.
No rain in months, but this evening after Clifton is laid to rest. Tears in Heaven???????

Tears of joy. Welcome home my son!!!

Early morning is the time I feel closest to Clifton. No interruptions, only peace and quite. Also, that is the time (before work) that he told me he loved me for the last time. I am so fortunate that he woke me up on that Sunday morning to tell me happy birthday and that he loved me. Then on Monday in the hospital, he squeezed my hand and opened his eyes only one time, but it was for Mommy. I just wanted to climb into bed and hold my baby. Over the years, our best conversations would be when he would climb into our bed just to talk. Some reason, Mom and Dad's bed was more comfortable. As he got older and would stay at home by himself, he would sleep in our bed when we were gone

The last week has been a roller coaster ride. We really thought Clifton would pull through; but for some reason that I will never understand, it was not in God's plan. This week has showed us that our baby grew into a man. A man that touched so many people. A man that was respected by everyone. A man that I am proud to have called my son!

So today, no I am not fine. But I do have a peace. Clifton was with us for 20 years and I know we will spend eternity together. It's this time period in between that will be difficult. I have peace of knowing that without a doubt, Clifton knew I loved him. Now that I look back, I would like to believe that when he opened his eyes that last time and squeezed my hand, that was my baby telling me goodbye in the only way he could under the circumstances.

I know I will never "get-over" Clifton. He was my only child, my miracle that I was entrusted with for 20 years, 1 month and two days. These years went by so fast.





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Safety Culture Tip - STRESS

9/28/2014

37 Comments

 
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Stress is a gateway to workplace accidents, injuries, absenteeism and poor performance.  In a recently published study, The Burden of Stress in America, both men and women rated finances and work problems as the second and third highest contributors to their personal stress.

In one of the largest studies (n-186,440) titled, Safety at Work: An Investigation of the Link Between Job Demands, Job Resources, Burnout, Engagement, and Safety Outcomes, which documented links to job demands and stress as having a larger than expected negative impact on workplace safety. The study also identified three critical factors that when consistently integrated into a safety culture will significantly reduce accidents and injuries and improve the health and performance of your employees. 

The first factor is to consistently perform formal and informal supportive risk and hazard assessments to reduce, mitigate or eliminate risks and hazards in tasks, the workplace environment and with the interface between employees and equipment.

The second is for organizations to create a supportive work environment for their employees.  The primary way to accomplish this is to provide training for managers and supervisors to be better leaders and to emphasize the importance of listening, teamwork and social supports.

The third is to be observant of factors that physically and psychologically increase work demands and stress. Remember that the unknown and feeling that you don’t have any control over your situation create the most distress for people.

Interestingly, across all industries, real and perceived risks and hazards was the most consistent job demand (stressor) and a supportive environment was the most consistent job resource in terms of explaining variance in burnout, engagement, and safety outcomes.

Safety Culture Tip: If your organization is experiencing disruptions due to reductions in business or other changes (remember most people view change as stressful) it will tap into what most people report as the biggest contributors to their personal stress – financial problems and work problems.

Tips:

Request your managers and supervisors to assess the physical, psychological and emotional climate of their employees.

Implement and emphasize the three factors, from the study, which are proven to reduce employee stress, accidents and injuries:

Request that supervisors and managers schedule a number of supportive risk and hazard assessments with their employees on all shifts. This is a great opportunity to not only assess risk, but as importantly for managers and supervisors to listen and converse with their employees. This will communicate caring and support. Most often night shifts receive little face-to-face contact with managers. This is a time to schedule that visit; it says a lot and means a lot! Actions always speak volumes!

Get to know your each of your employees and how they deal with stress. Some become more withdrawn while others may show increased annoyance and irritation. Take the time to check in with these employees and privately let them know you noticed a change in their behavior and would like to talk if they would like too. You can also suggest that the employee can connect with the EAP and your Employee Health Specialist for support.

Information is power. The biggest fear of humans is of the unknown. Share as much information as you can with your employees. Even if the news is “bad” people do better knowing then left to catastrophizing alone or with each other. Communicating indicates that you respect and care. Look for the positive aspect of the situation and or change and convey that as well.

Creating a supportive environment will go along way in preventing the next lost time day and the trust of your employees.


 

 




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What's In Your (Resiliency) Bank Account

4/2/2014

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Picture

One thing you can count on is life being a mix of good times, bad times, joy, and sorrow. None of us can predict what tomorrow will bring.

Consider the tragedies our nation, communities, and families have experienced in the past years: 9/11; Katrina; Sandy Hook. The people affected by these unexpected events didn’t plan for the pain and sorrow they would experience, and yet they had to find a way to make it through the day and each day thereafter.

What is it that gets us through tragedies and everyday adversities? It’s not the size of our bank accounts, or our jobs, or our possessions; it’s an entirely different resource more valuable than money, available to all of us, all of the time.

It is resiliency.  

Resiliency springs from our innate desire for life. It helps us persist through the bad times until we regain our footing and are once again productive, positive, and hopeful. Although we all possess resiliency, the strength of our resilience only grows as much as we nurture it—by making daily deposits.

Think of a savings account. Every day life presents us with small and large challenges, all of which withdraw resiliency from our account. If we don’t, in return, make deposits, we might find ourselves lacking the resiliency needed to keep our spark for life bright.

Here are a few ways, or daily deposits, you can make to your resiliency account. When you encounter an unexpected adversity, you’ll be grateful to know your account is full.

Just say no to the negative voices:

There is a part of your brain that acts as a safety alert system designed to warn you of suspected danger. It also reminds you of past negative experiences, hoping to make sure you avoid similar experiences moving forward.

Sometimes, though, this makes us feel incapable of learning from the situation and trying again with confidence. Though your brain thinks it’s doing you a service—trying to keep you from feeling pain again—know when to say “no” to negative talk.

Simply say, “Thanks for your concern, but I’m not going to listen to you for a while. I’ve got important work to do.” Give yourself the room and permission you need for your positive voice, because it wants to help you heal. “This is a rough period I’m going through,” you might say, “but I know I’ll make it. I’ll be stronger.”

Build your circle of fans:

And I don’t mean through social media. You need to build a close circle of friends that are honest, vulnerable, and helpful, and that participates in an equal give and take (of time, opinions, ideas, and so on). Nothing takes the place of face-to-face contact, either.

Make sure you add at least one of the following to your circle:

·      Someone with whom you feel comfortable sharing your most honest thoughts and feelings.
·      Someone who will give you a good kick in the behind if they see you’re not taking the action needed to get to
       where you want to go.
·      Someone who will listen and offer his or her honest perspective.

Push and be compassionate:


Moving through difficult times is never easy, and it is natural to want to retreat and avoid anything you think will be difficult, burdensome, or over stimulating. But resiliency doesn’t mean retreat.

Whatever might be weighing you down, whatever roadblocks you see before you--push. Keep moving. Get thoughtful, creative, and simplistic in your approach. Take small steps, start over, or try another route. Whether or not you meet your end goal, you will have added a dose of resiliency to your account.

Most importantly, use this time to practice patience and compassion with yourself. You are as deserving of your own understanding and acceptance as anyone else.

Practice your smile:

In times of adversity or sorrow, it’s easy to be overcome with pain and doubt, and to let these thoughts tinge our view of the world.

When you can, find things worth smiling about: a cute kitten, a joyful child, a funny comedy clip on television. Make it a point to point out what’s nice in life, even if it’s one small thing every day.

These small positive moments ultimately lead to positive changes in our thoughts and feelings. When smiling feels the hardest, that’s when you need it the most.

That’s when your deposits will be the largest, though they may seem small.


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