Organizational Structure in Support of Safety Performance

Organizational Structure in Support of Safety Performance

In order to design the best organizational structure from a safety perspective, it’s valuable to reflect on a few principles of safety performance and in particular, the question of which group is ultimately accountable for safety performance and then follow the implication of the answers.

Safety Performance Principles

When it comes to prevailing best practice around who is responsible for safety performance, the answer is; the Operations groups whose employees are exposed to the most hazards. A common misconception outside industry is that the Safety Department is responsible, but that is not best practice. The origins of this ‘Line Ownership’ for safety can be traced back to the early 1800’s and the view that; “accident prevention is an integral part of the operating routine and therefore an operating responsibility”. That principle dovetails with another fundamental principle of accountability which is; “accountability must follow and respect the lines in the org chart”.

These two principles result in the conclusion that its Operations Leadership and not Safety Department leadership who is accountable for safety performance. Typically, the Operations and Safety teams collaborate to develop approaches that allow the work of the company to be accomplished safely. While approaches vary based on the requirements of the industry, for any operating practice, safety strategy, process or device, in order to have a positive impact on safety the following 3 characteristics must exist:

These three requirements apply to virtually everything related to safety; from the preflight checklist pilots use, to the risk assessment tools field employees use, or even the car seatbelts we use in daily life. The challenge is that being able to get all three requirements in place in an organizational setting requires the contributions of different groups:

1. Verifying strategies and devices are technically/procedurally correct involves Subject Matter Experts (SME’s), Safety Department, Engineers and Technical Advisors.

2. Testing to determine if safety strategies, procedures and tools are approachable and work in the real world must involve Frontline Employees and Supervisors.

3. Achieving rigor and accountability around following the safe operating practices is the responsibility of Operations Leadership (at all Levels).

What we see in almost every unfortunate safety incident is that at least one of the 3 requirements above was not met. What we also see is that it’s all too common for at least one of the groups to not be filling the roles they should, for instance.

• We see companies that create safety committees with well-meaning participants who may understand the industry but lack the specific safety subject matter expertise, and as a result, produce technically flawed approaches to safety.
• We see Safety Advisors attempting to influence the organization to follow safety practices by attempting to hold Operations employees accountable, which fails because they are not their supervisor.
• We see companies that fail to engage their employees in safety improvement or worse yet, fail to engage employees in verifying that the desired practices will work under field conditions.
• We see companies that hope the employees they have engaged in developing safety practices will be able to convince their peers to embrace safety practices and create the required culture of accountability across the workforce, which fails every time.
• We see companies have great practices on paper but have not done the right things to make sure Operations supervisors create the rigor and accountability required.

Of the three safety strategy requirements it seems like it’s the third, rigor and accountability, that gives many companies the most trouble. However, the solution is not complex, it’s just that the company cannot expect the Safety Department, a selection of engaged employees, or a bunch of ‘rules’ to create rigor and a culture of accountability. It can only be an aligned Operations Management team (at all levels) that creates rigor and accountability. Then within the Operations group, the Front line Supervisors have the biggest impact on the operating