{"id":44448,"date":"2019-01-29T11:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T15:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caireadydev1.wpenginepowered.com\/life-sciences\/cai-what-does-it-take-to-inspire-people-to-work-safely\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T17:54:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T21:54:43","slug":"what-does-it-take-to-inspire-people-to-work-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/blog\/what-does-it-take-to-inspire-people-to-work-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"What does it take to inspire people to work safely?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 3464px;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/705173\/dreamstimeextralarge_31301133.jpg\" alt=\"dreamstimeextralarge_31301133\" width=\"3464\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Having led many large capital projects around the world that had very strong safety records, I was asked by an HSE leader about my approach for creating and inspiring a strong safety culture&#8230; this was my response:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is no magic bullet\u2026 but\u00a0<strong><u>the approach of leadership is the most important element<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0of a strong safety program and safety performance<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Employees will first watch what management does<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0regarding safety and then they will listen to what they say \u2013 if these don\u2019t align, the system will fail<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>You can\u2019t drive safety from your desk<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 leadership must get out and talk with employees and workers about their jobs and about the safety issues surrounding them<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Leadership must act on what employees tell them needs to be improved<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0in the area \u2013 employees will watch for the responses<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Strong safety performance is based on behaviors<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0(80-90 percent of all accidents\/injuries result from behaviors\u2026 I would argue that it is 100% because any condition which \u2018causes\u2019 an accident probably has an underlying related behavior)<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>The work must be thought out in advance<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0and the rules must be pre-defined for how the work will be done safely \u2013 writing out the \u2018rules\u2019 won\u2019t make the area safe but it is impossible to have a strong safety performance when expectations are not known<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Little things add up to big things<\/u><\/strong>\u2026 watching for and coaching the small rules (PPE use, holding handrails, eyes on path, housekeeping, ergonomic practices, etc.) will cause employees to behave properly in those areas\u2026 behaving properly in those &#8216;little things&#8217; drive behaviors to be applied to the more dangerous activities. Ignoring the little things will cause people to ignore the big things.<\/li>\n<li><strong><u>Leaders must show people that they care about them<\/u><\/strong>\u2026 leaders aren\u2019t just demanding that rules be followed, they need to be seen to be demonstrating honest concern about the well-being of the employees<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 198px; float: right; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/705173\/Nieport.jpg\" alt=\"Nieport\" width=\"198\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I believe deeply in these ideas and I try to implement them wherever I go. We are always just a moment away from an accident\u2026 these approaches by leadership yield a higher probability to succeed in maintaining the well-being of employees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you do to inspire your team?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CAI can help you deliver your projects with safety in mind. We have experienced personnel around the world who drive safe project performances:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Completed a project in China with excellent safety results (completed several million craft labor hours with zero serious injuries \u2013 in collaboration with partners). Project received multiple safety awards from partner and client companies and from industry professional societies.<\/li>\n<li>Drove culture change at manufacturing site safety team improving the safety performance from the worst to the best performing site in the collection of manufacturing teams. Used behavior-based safety approaches to influence the improved culture.<\/li>\n<li>Established the safety culture of an engineering manufacturing support team which achieved multiple years of injury free performance across the trade personnel.<\/li>\n<li>Assisted client in updating safety procedures after witnessing a injury by a contractor on the project team.<\/li>\n<li>Interrupted a new employee orientation to address a safety issue that, if not caught at the time, could have impacted personnel, equipment, or production schedules.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Contact us<\/a> and let\u2019s discuss your projects and your safety program needs.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><strong>About the author:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 150px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=150&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=75&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 75w, https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=150&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=225&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=300&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=375&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 375w, https:\/\/blog.commissioningagents.com\/hs-fs\/hubfs\/MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg?width=450&amp;name=MartinMike-896703-edited.jpg 450w\" alt=\"MartinMike-896703-edited\" width=\"150\" \/><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">\u00a0Michael Martin, Global Director, Program &amp; Project Project Management \u00a0has 32 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He developed a solid technical base and reputation from his early assignments in design, construction, maintenance, and project management. For the past 20+ years, he has been involved in various leadership assignments in manufacturing, engineering, and project management.\u00a0Mike inspires high performance from his team even in difficult circumstances. He has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to integrate himself into diverse cultures and to get individuals from various cultures to work together and accomplish very difficult goals. Mike brings systematic thinking and organization to the teams he leads, and this approach builds consistency and higher performance as the team develops.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\">Email Mike at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:michael.martin@cagents.com\">michael.martin@cagents.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having led many large capital projects around the world that had very strong safety records, I was asked by an HSE leader about my approach for creating and inspiring a strong safety culture&#8230; this was my response:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"resource-featured-status":[],"resource-type":[819],"class_list":["post-44448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","resource-type-blog"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"mikeviele","author_link":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/blog\/author\/mikeviele\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44448"},{"taxonomy":"resource-featured-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-featured-status?post=44448"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caiready.com\/life-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-type?post=44448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}