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PROGRESS REPORTANNUAL SAFETY

Identifying and Overcoming Common Safety Challenges

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ABOUT THE ANNUAL SAFETY PROGRESS REPORTThe 3rd Annual Safety Progress Survey from SafeStart and the EHS Daily Advisor was launched in late November 2018 and gathered the insight of 467 environmental, health, and safety (EHS) professionals regarding the state of safety at their companies. We would like to extend our thanks to these professionals for their participation!

The goals for this survey and this Annual Safety Progress Report based on its results are multifaceted. Our aim for the past three years has been to not only provide the safety industry with valuable insight into current challenges, but also to help facilitate safety improvements and record progress annually. We want to perform research that will help ensure we are all moving the safety needle in a positive direction, eliminating challenges and checking off the required boxes necessary to meet the very important objective of protecting workers in all industries.

As we report on our third annual effort, we also look forward to keeping our finger on the pulse of safety and identify how organizations are progressing in future editions of the Annual Safety Progress Report. Keep an eye out for our next survey, launching in November of 2019, so that you can help shape the discussion!

Note: All percentages in this report have been rounded to the nearest whole percent. If you have any questions or comments about the Annual Safety Progress Report and its accompanying survey, please e-mail media@simplifycompliance.com.

Looking for Even More Information?

You can download our first and second Annual Safety Progress Reports at the following links:

• 2017 report: https://ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com/resource/ annual-safety-progress-report/

• 2018 report: https://ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com/resource/ annual-safety-progress-report-2018-2/

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CONTENTS

About the Annual Safety Progress Report ............................2

How Has Safety Progressed in the Past Year? .....................4

Employee Engagement: A Special Challenge ......................5

The Annual Safety Progress Survey Results .........................6Our Respondents Talk Safety ............................................................................ 6Safety Challenges ..................................................................................................7Eliminating Safety Challenges ........................................................................... 8Knowledge of Safety Regulations .................................................................... 9Knowledge of Human Factors and Behavioral Safety .............................10Professional Development ................................................................................. 11Obstacles to Implementing Safety Improvements ....................................12Overall Compliance ............................................................................................. 13Proactive, Productive, and Safe ....................................................................... 14Safety Culture Stages .........................................................................................15Building Blocks ......................................................................................................16Future Topics ......................................................................................................... 17Grading the Company on Safety ..................................................................... 18

Who Responded? ..................................................................... 19

About Our Sponsor ................................................................. 20

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HOW HAS SAFETY PROGRESSED IN THE PAST YEAR?

With our third Annual Safety Progress Survey results, we now have several years of data for comparison, and have observed no wild fluctuations from year to year. Our greatest change this year was only seven percentage points, and most changes consisted of differences of two or three percent.

Some Paradoxical FindingsOur survey showed some interesting (and somewhat contradictory) trends among EHS professionals. While some results displayed clearly positive progress, other results demon-strate a certain pessimism among safety pros. Consider the following:

• This is the most knowledgeable group of EHS professionals across all three years. 57% of survey participants indicated they had a thorough knowledge of regulatory requirements and OSHA compliance (an increase over 54% from 2018 and 2017), and 60% have at least some knowledge of human factors and behavioral safety. 71% of survey participants said that their companies provide them with sufficient professional development opportunities and/or additional training, and a higher number of 2019 respondents said that their knowledge has increased moder-ately in the past year than in our 2018 results.

• A majority of participants said they have addressed four core building blocks of an advanced safety organization—last year, a majority said they had only addressed 3 of these key concepts.

• While the same obstacles remain to im-plementing safety improvements, fewer survey respondents report encountering them. For 4 out of 7 obstacles, the per-centage of participants that cited them decreased from 2018 to 2019.

Despite this progress, our annual report card shows that EHS professionals gave their com-panies lower marks for safety—a trend that has continued through the history of the survey. Generally speaking, fewer survey participants are giving various organizational safety efforts A’s and B’s, and more of them are giving these efforts C’s and D’s.

Perhaps this isn’t due to “pessimism” as de-scribed above, however—it could be that this is evidence of a new cultural attitude in safety, an attitude that improvement must always be pur-sued. And that was another issue that stood out in our third annual survey: The growing impor-tance of safety culture and employee engage-ment.

As you read through the report, you’ll see highlighted in blue text how results have changed for 2019 compared with 2018. We will also make some references to our 2017 survey, the first year for which data are available.

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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: A SPECIAL CHALLENGE

The majority of participants—68%—do have such a plan, further demonstrating that employee en-gagement is at the forefront of the minds of EHS pros nationwide. Many briefly shared their plans for tackling engagement:

• “We have the supervisor meet with the em-ployee to discuss how the incident was pre-ventable. We also discuss at safety meetings and invite employees to come. Employees [become] invested in their own world, and repeat incidents have decreased.”

• “We have failed in the past, because man-agement designed a program they thought would work without employee input. In 2019 it’s all about the employees, and man-agement will work to meet the employees’ needs and interests.”

• “In high hazard industries you have to be on the deck-plates and interact, find moments of coaching, attend tool-box meetings, meet the assets (employees) on their level and work alongside them to show that you are a part of their team and not just a numbers counter and sitting behind a desk.”

• “I have been doing a lot of safety audits. When I am still on site, I pick up a shovel and work alongside the crews, and they see I am willing to work as they are. I do ride-alongs with drivers and listen to them and the struggles they are having, both work related and personal. I always add pictures with the audits and safety meetings. They crews like to see themselves and share with their fam-ilies what they are doing at work. I listen to the employees’ ideas, and even when their idea is not implemented by management, they see that I brought it to the table for discussion.”

• “We actively approach safety. We focus a lot on learning, teaching, educating even going as far as to create ‘lesson plans’ for each month much like a teacher does in schools.”

• “Just focusing on a building a culture fo-cused on safety. I am hoping that forming a safety committee with nonmanagement employees will help influence this culture and help employees buy into it.”

Improving safety culture has become a top goal of EHS professionals, and this year’s survey results support this. 48% of respondents said their safety culture took a step forward in the past year—a solid increase from the 44% who noted this in 2018’s report. And a key factor in improving culture is boosting employee engagement.

We expected that employee engagement would be a primary safety challenge again this year, and it was—in fact, it was selected as the top challenge for the third year in a row. In anticipation of this, we added a question to this year’s survey: Do you have a plan to address employee engagement?

As you read through the results on the following pages, keep this focus on culture in mind. What will you do in the coming year to promote safety?

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OUR RESPONDENTS TALK SAFETY

We began our annual safety survey, as always, with two open-ended questions:

1. What is the single greatest challenge you’re currently facing in safety at your organization?

2. How are you planning on addressing this challenge in the next 12 months?

Over 450 participants provided answers; here are some of the highlights among their responses, covering a variety of safety topics.

ComplacencyOne respondent described “Complacency with personal safety” as the greatest challenge, but has a plan to address it: “We're creating scenario-based safety training that has plantwide implications and applicability.”

Employee EngagementThe challenge: “Keeping all employees engaged in safety practices, in the safety program, and in holding each other accountable for safety.”

The plan: “Revamping the program and adding more employee incentives.”

Training“Time for training” was deemed the number one challenge by a participant, who plans to address it with “increased availability and convenience of training options.”

Basic ComplianceThe challenge: “Becoming compliant with OSHA regulations.”

The plan: “We have contracted with a consulting firm to help us write a comprehensive safety manual from which all future safety trainings will be based.”

Management Buy-inOne challenge described by a respondent was “Getting high level executive/decision-maker buy in for necessary risk management and safety initiatives. Also getting policies in place and proj-ects completed since safety seems to be low on the priority list.” He or she plans to address it by “Trying to provide a better/more persuasive busi-ness case.”

Safety CultureThe challenge: “Existing culture which is still op-posed to change.”

The plan: “Continuing with some of the strategies already been trying. Stepping up opportunities for communication between the safety division and the various workgroups.”

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SAFETY CHALLENGES

Other safety challenges that were common among respondents included:

• Common recurring injuries such as slips, trips, and falls (33%) á from 32%• Lackluster safety culture (27%) â from 30%• Clashes between safety and production (26%) No change• Organizational and/or leadership buy-in (23%) â from 28%

When presented a list of common safety challenges, our survey participants chose the same top 3 most pressing concerns as in last year’s report.

Employee engagement (54%) á from 48%

Employees taking shortcuts or ignoring rules (46%) á from 44%

Supervisor participation in safety programs (42%) á from 38%

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ELIMINATING SAFETY CHALLENGES

We next asked how many safety challenges participants had eliminated in the last 12 months via some sort of proactive improvement strategy.

14% said that they had not eliminated any safety challenges. á from 12%

44% had eliminated 1 or 2. â from 47%

24% of those polled had eliminated 2–4 challenges. No change

About 18% had eliminated 5 or more safety challenges. No change

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KNOWLEDGE OF SAFETY REGULATIONS

When asked about their current level of knowvledge concerning regulatory requirements and OSHA compliance, 57% of survey participants indicated they had a thorough knowledge of the subject. á from 54%

An additional 37% said that they had some knowledge of this subject. â from 42%

5% of respondents said they had very limited knowledge of regulatory requirements regarding safety á from 4%, and only 5 participants total (approximately 1%) said they had no knowledge. No change

Just over one-half of respondents (55%) said that their knowledge of regulatory require-ments and OSHA compliance has increased “moderately” in the past year … á from 48%

… while 25% said they have experienced a “significant” increase in knowledge on the subject. â from 28%

18% of those polled had only a small increase in their knowledge of safety regulatory requirements. â from 23%

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KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN FACTORS AND BEHAVIORAL SAFETY

Participants were a bit less knowledgeable when it came to human factors and behavioral safety. Only 32% of respondents claimed to have thorough knowledge … No change

… and 60% said that they had only “some” knowledge on the topic. á from 59% 8% had very limited knowledge â from 9%, and only 3 respondents had no knowledge at all.

When asked how much their knowledge of human factors and behavioral safety has increased in the past year, 26% of respondents said that it has increased little. â from 29%,

However, 52% of respondents said their knowledge had increased “moderately,” á from 47% and 19% believed that their knowledge had increased “significantly” in the last 12 months. â from 20%

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In order for safety programs to succeed, safety professionals must be given the opportunity to develop their knowledge of the field and apply new best practices within their organizations. 71% of survey participants said that their companies provide them with sufficient professional development opportunities and/or additional training to help them increase their knowledge of safety-related issues … á from 68%

… but that means that for 29% of the safety professionals polled, their companies are not providing this form of support. â from 32%

Respondents differed in the amount of time they were able to spend researching safety improvements—but nearly one-half (45%) of those polled indicated that researching safety improvements is a part of their regular routines. á from 43%

11% of respondents spent less than a few hours on researching improvements in the past 12 months â from 12%, while 26% were able to spend more than a few hours but could never devote a full day at once to research. á from 23%

2% of the response pool only allocates time for safety research when the company identifies a specific need for a solution or has seen a spike in injuries—fortunately, this reactive approach is on the decline. â from 4%

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OBSTACLES TO IMPLEMENTING SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS

Of course, many times when an opportunity for safety improvement is identified, there are obstacles to implementing it. Here are the top 3 factors that limit our survey participants’ ability to implement safety improvements. These are the same top 3 for the third year in a row, but this year the position of the second and third obstacles are inverted.

1. Budget (A factor cited by 54%

of those polled) â from 57%

2. Training Time/ logistics

(A limiting factor for 47% of the response

pool) á from 43%

3. Competing with other Operational

(non-safety) project/priorities (This obstacle was selected by 44% of

respondents) â from 50%

Other common obstacles to safety improvement implementation were:

• Employee commitment (36%) á from 35%• Creating a sense of urgency for initiatives not required by law (36%) â from 40%• Leadership support (33%) â from 35%• Showing the organizational value of the safety initiative (32%) á from 28%

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OVERALL COMPLIANCE

We next asked survey participants to choose the statement that best describes the compliance aspect of the safety programs at their organizations. The share of respondents at the extremes of the spectrum (with noncompliance at one end and above-and-beyond safety programs at the other) has declined this year, and the majority of participants are actively seeking to improve their programs, either to become fully compliant or to take their efforts beyond compliance:

4% 26% 17% 41% 12%

“We are not compliant with

OSHA regulations and are not able to be in

compliance due to limited

resources or lack of commitment.”

“We are not fully compliant with

OSHA standards yet, but we’re

actively trying to fix gaps in our compliance.”

“We are compliant with

OSHA standards but have made no efforts to go

beyond minimum compliance.”

“We are trying to take our safety program to the

next level beyond compliance.”

“We have an excellent

safety program that goes well beyond OSHA compliance.”

â from 6% á from 24% á from 14% á from 40% â from 15%

For the majority of our survey respondents, their chosen statement regarding the compliance aspect of their safety programs was an improvement over last year. 60% said that their company’s current state of compliance is a step forward from the previous year … á from 54%

… 38% indicated that it is essentially the same … â from 41%

… and 2% indicated that their company had taken a step back from where it was previously regarding compliance. â from 4%

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PROACTIVE, PRODUCTIVE, AND SAFE

Nearly two-thirds of participants favor a proactive approach to safety, further evidence of a shift in attention towards stronger safety culture, increased employee engagement, and preventing incidents before they happen:

PROACTIVE REACTIVE(A focus on injury prevention, engineering out hazards, and frequent effective training)

(Action is taken only after an incident or

injury occurs)

65% 35%á from 63% â from 37%

The difference in priority between safety and productivity at our respondents’ organizations was a little less clear-cut.

For 28% of those polled, safety always comes first á from 26%—and 25% said that safety is only occasionally trumped by productivity. â from 28%

28% of respondents said that production mostly wins out over safety á from 26%, and for 5% of the response pool production is always put first. â from 6%

For 14% of participants, safety and productivity are equally prioritized. á from 13%

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SAFETY CULTURE STAGES

When our respondents were asked if their selected safety culture stage was an improvement over last year:

48% said their culture had taken a step forward … á from 44%

… 50% indicated they were pretty much in the same place … â from 54%

… and 2% said that their organization’s safety culture had taken a step backward. â from 3%

(Recognizing action must be taken to correct issues)

(You have established policies and procedures, manage by objectives, and are in basic legal

compliance with rules and regulations)

(The supervisory level, driven by compliance, is more observant of behavioral safety but there is little

employee involvement)

(Employees are empowered to work as a team, peer-to-peer, to improve safety behaviors and

performance)

(A strong and self-sustaining culture of safety throughout the organization that is employee-driven)

11% á from 9%

33% â from 36%

26% á from 24%

27% â from 29%

3% á from 2%

STAGE 1: REALIZATION

STAGE 2: TRADITIONAL

STAGE 3: OBSERVATION

STAGE 4: EMPOWERMENT

STAGE 5: UTOPIA

When it comes to safety culture, not every company is at the same stage of development. A large majority of

respondents fell somewhere in the middle among 5 unique stages of safety culture:

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BUILDING BLOCKS

When presented with a list of core building blocks of an advanced safety organizations, over 50% of our response pool had addressed four of them:

1. Achieve OSHA compliance (58%) â from 61%

2. Have an observation and feed-back process (58%) â from 59%

3. Address behavioral safety and human error (52%) No change

4. Extend safety practices to include contractors (51%) á from 49%

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Here were the building blocks that rounded out the rest of the list, along with the percentage of respondents who have addressed them:

• Have regular near-miss/near-hit reporting (47%) â from 49%

• Supervisors regularly communicate and intervene to ensure safe conditions and behavior (44%) á from 43%

• Build active leadership support (43%) â from 44%

• Develop a common language for safety (42%) â from 45%

• Fully integrate safety into operations (40%) No change

• Develop good employee engagement (39%) â from 43%

• Develop a strong focus on off-the-job safety (27%) No change

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FUTURE TOPICS

We next asked which general areas and specific topics on which our survey takers would like to see more research and resources, and information on behavioral safety and human factors took the top spot, with safety culture coming in second. These top two priorities remained the same for the third year running, but as you can see below, other items on the list shifted compared to last year.

In the most dramatic shift, the topic of safety regulations and legal compliance dropped three spots on the list. This speaks to a trend of safety professionals favoring approaches that go beyond compliance and address the underlying culture of safety.

Here are the ten topics that our respondents were most interested in learning more about:

This list contains almost all of the same items as in last year’s Safety Progress Report—however, safety recordkeeping, which came in at #10 last year, fell off the list of topics.

1. Behavioral safety and human factors (66%) No change

2. Safety culture (58%) No change3. Safety incentives (49%) á 1 spot4. Safety training (48%) á 1 spot5. Training skills and techniques

(47%) â 2 spots6. Safety regulations and legal

compliance (37%) â 3 spots7. Industry-specific safety issues

(36%) â 1 spot8. Emergency preparedness (34%)

No change9. Safety and temporary workers

(28%) â 2 spots10. Personal protective equipment

(PPE) (27%) â 1 spot

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GRADING THE COMPANY ON SAFETY

For the final survey question, we asked participants to assign a letter grade to their company for several different safety efforts. The report card they gave us is below—how would your company perform?

If we compare this with last year’s report card (and our 2017 report), the grades have continued on a slight downward trend … however, with the clear focus on improvements in safety culture evidenced by this year’s survey, one can hope that our 2020 report card will show improvements across the board.

REPORT CARD A B C D F

What grade would you assign the safe workplace conditions at your organization?

20% âfrom 23%

49% No Change

19% No Change

6% áfrom 3%

1% No Change

What grade would you assign the safe behaviors of employees at your organization?

9% áfrom 7%

43% âfrom 48%

40% áfrom 37%

7% âfrom 8%

1% No Change

What grade would you assign your organization with regards to workplace safety?

19% No Change

46% âfrom 50%

27% áfrom 25%

7% áfrom 5%

2% No Change

What grade would you assign your organization with regards to off-the-job safety?

7% áfrom 6%

28% âfrom 30%

38% âfrom 40%

22% áfrom 20%

5% áfrom 4%

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WHO RESPONDED?

The participants in our annual Safety Progress Survey work in a variety of positions, and an over-whelming majority of 70% are managers, direc-tors, or executives within the safety and/or EHS department of their organizations. A further 10% of respondents are staff-level employees, and 7% are front-line supervisors. The remainder of the response pool was made up of various job titles, including managers of human resources (or other organizational functions outside of safety/EHS), consultants, and contractors.

28% of respondents work at organizations that employ 1,000 or more employees, while 24% reported from smaller companies of 99 or fewer employees. The remaining 48% work at businesses that employ between 100 and 999 workers.

The top industry represented in the response pool (for the third year running) was manufacturing, which consisted of 29% of participants. Other in-dustries with a strong presence in our annual sur-vey included construction (16%), health care (7%), government (7%), and chemical production (6%). A large section of the response pool (19%) specified other industries of which they are a part, including:

• Oil and gas• Utilities• Mining• Aviation• Security

SafeStart is a global safety company focused on error reduction, human factors,

traditional BBS and off-the-job injury prevention. Their team of trusted advisors have helped tens of thousands of safety

professionals in 60+ countries move beyond compliance and

beyond the workplace to achieve their corporate safety goals.

Learn more at www.safestart.com.

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