Steps to Better Job Performance Nathan Crutchfield / James Roughton

In our book, James Roughton and I used a basic problem solving circle to visualize the process strategy for analyzing the workplace. In the overall strategy and as a reality check, you are in Phase 1 “Conducting a risk assessment of the workplace” – where are the risks, hazards and what is the status of the current controls in place?



The other phases are “Prioritize risk assessment findings”, “Develop solutions to resolve risk-related issues”, “Recommend and implement solution” with “Monitoring the results of solutions implemented” centering the process.

Back on Day 2, you began the organizing of your office and safety materials. This activity should be a life long process and effort – think “entropy” if you don’t. Have you located all possible organizational safety manuals, policies, procedures and programs? Have you checked for all forms of media – hard copy and electronic? Information may reside on a number of different computers and rounding up the files will take time.

Have you begun the organizing of files, loss information, accident investigations, manuals, newsletters, handouts? What has existed in the past? What’s in use now?  What is the quality of the materials and their presentation? This may not appear to be safety “stuff” but it is critical to your understanding of the past as well as developing plans for the future.

Determine when the safety information (manuals, procedures, forms, etc) was last updated?  Determine if the content and its context still apply or has the organization changed or modified in a way that has made it obsolete or incomplete? Malcolm Gladwell uses this format in his classic work “The Tipping Point” that places Content and Context as part of the fundamentals for successful growth. “Content” provides the core information. “Context” is the manner that it is presented – is it in the format and business language used by the organization and at a level that can be understood?  Does it clearly fit the needs of the organization?

A major part of your job, and important to the building of a quality safety culture, is your ability to find information quickly when safety questions are asked by managers and employees.  Your goal is to develop a comprehensive process that structures programs, policies and procedures. If the information you present is of poor quality in how it is presented, looks or its content suspect or if you cannot locate the item, it is no longer information – if it isn’t used or you can’t locate it, it does not “exist” – at least as far as your organization is concerned.

Organizing your materials is not limited to just a hardcopy library – you must have Internet access, electronic files and an electronic library of materials to consider.

Summary of Day 8 -You should be continuing the “5S” of your area. How you maintain and organize your information and media, your office or cube area is as important as the professional image you present.

Analysis of the Current Organization Climate



Continuing the review of the current organization climate and becoming fully acquainted with your new position and organization requires expanding your circle in the search for information.

Other sources of information that may be available include the services and visits by the insurance carrier and insurance broker, the local fire marshal and local emergency response units, as well as possibly federal, state and local regulatory compliance officers. Each of these entities provides additional indicators of the current state of the organizational climate as well as a perspective on risk issues that have been address or should have been addressed. You may find that there is a lack of commitment, not funds allocated for reducing the risk, or other underlined problems why the risk has not been corrected. You may find that a fine may be justified as “the cost of doing business.” There are still organizations that think that way. I once hear an argument on citations that was $10,000. The question was it more expensive to fix the condition than just to pay the fine. This think should not be acceptable, but this is the reality of life and the mentality of organization that you will not exist until you are employed.

Insurance company and/or insurance brokerage risk and loss control specialists may visit as part of the insurance services and provide some valuable guidance. Many times these types of services can be a hindrance, as they are “insurers” and they want to ensure that they will not have to pay out losses. Therefore, some of these insurance companies are very restrictive and may ask you to do some things that may sound unreasonable. And in some cases the survey may be unreasonable. The nature of the game is that you have to sort out what is best for the organization.

Bear in mind, Insurance Company and/or insurance brokerage risk and loss control specialists are the “surveyors” that provide insurance underwriters with information about the state of the risk they have taken on.   After each visit, a letter or report is often written sent to the organization’s insurance or risk manager. Reports go to underwriters who price your insurance programs. The reports provide details on the concerns of the insurance company as well as possible recommendations for improvement. Response to any recommendations should not be taken lightly and a response should be provided that provides the controls or alternatives to be taken.

Based on discussions with the insurance specialists determine the scope of any services and how you can best use the expertise. You may find safety, industrial hygiene; property, fleet and other expertise have been on site or under utilized, as well as a source of materials available for specific program development.

Regulatory visits are due to a variety of issues, from some internal or external complaint on to special projects of the agency.   These may involve legal issues and the legal department may need to be involved. Any indicators that regulatory compliance problems exist should be given the highest priority; after all, these requirements are usually “the laws of the land!” Non-compliance may also increase the potential for increased liability in the event of a loss-producing incident and in turn impact the insurance program. Needless to say, non-compliance publicity may further harm the company “brand’ which is a major concern to most companies.

While these various services with their visits and reports may range in timing and quality, they offer another perspective about your organization. This specialist may have made recommendations that should be reviewed for validity. If no one has been tracking and working with these specialists, this area has potential impact on the organization, insurance cost, and regulatory compliance. Work at making these personnel and services allies to your efforts.

Summary of Day 7 -

A major element of an effective risk and safety process is to reduce the level and the potential for injuries to employees, third-parties (non-employees), and damage to equipment, materials, or facilities. A number of questions need to be asked that include:



Does the organization have a substantial history of injury and damage?
How does it compare to its industry?
What is the workers compensation loss history?
What are the types and severity of the losses that are occurring?
Which way are losses trending? Have you inherited a process that has loss-producing incidents trending up, down or flat?
Based on the loss history, is the organization being targeted by regulators, lawyers and activist?



You must have a clear understanding and knowledge of the losses that have or are occurring. While this may appear to be backward looking, your purpose is two fold in the development of a safety process – reduce both current losses and the risk faced by the organization to a level that is acceptable – Acceptable not just to management, but to employees and society in general. Your goal is to clearly identifying the quality of the current safety culture. You have located, hopefully, the loss data, loss analyses, accident investigations, and OSHA logs on day 5. Today, begin an in-depth review of the data.

If your company has risk management/insurance personnel, set an appointment with them. If not, identify who handles the insurance program.  Find out as much as possible about the claims history from their perspective. Ask about outstanding/open claims, bad cases, incurred costs, etc.  Even in this era of data driven programs, many safety managers may not be taking full advantage of potential information from the risk/insurance department.

Workers’ Compensation data will provide a wealth of information concerning the types of injuries, where they are the injuries occurring, as well as occurrence by time of day, day of week, month, department, by supervisor, incurred costs, etc. depending on the quality of the risk management information system. If your organization has a risk information system, try to get access and learn how to use it to develop special reports especially if it has ad hoc reporting capability. A combination of first reports of injury, accident investigations, loss runs and analysis can assist the targeting of your efforts to specific loss producing situations. The OSHA log and Workers Compensation data will parallel but not be the same. What may not be an OSHA recordable may be a Workers Compensation Claim.

General Liability – This may not be a part of your responsibility but can provide further insights on operational risk areas that are harming non-employees. Incidents that harm non-employees may also be setting conditions that harm employees. If non-employees are being harmed by operations, the overall safety culture is weak.

Auto Liability - As with General Liability, the same can be said about Auto Liability, except here you get four whacks – auto/vehicle incidents can injury employees and non-employees as well as cause property damage and incur legal expenses. Does your organization have a well managed and thorough fleet safety program? If not, you have another of risk to work on.

Property – Another area is to determine if property damage claims are occurring. Who has responsibility for facilities? These reports can give indicators of fire protection and life safety issues and risks.

Cost of Risk - Finally, try to find out the organization’s “Cost of Risk”. This is basically the sum total of all claims and insurance costs plus administration costs. It can provide another indicator about the state of the safety culture. If the “COR” is greater that approximately 1% of total revenue, you may have a serious problem – injuries and damage may be having an impact on the financial success of the organization.  Depending on the in

Establishing Structure

Developing structure through a logical approach will help keep the necessary tasks prioritized and organized as well as aid in reducing the potential overwhelming emotions that may develop depending on the state of the safety culture (What have I gotten into!) . By starting with sorting out your office and files, you can begin to set structure to your mission. The small success of simply clearing out clutter and seeing an administrative process begin can be comforting if nothing else. Get things in order! This however, as the books referenced in Day 2 will be an ongoing affair.



Make use of a daily planner, Microsoft Outlook, or other device to keep notes, set priorities, and maintain your schedule and calendar. This is an art. Finding the balance between a structured day and the need for flexibility is essential. I use Outlook for calendar, contacts and projects along with a simple composition book to record phone calls, observations, etc. You may prefer a very formal looking binder or other software – whatever works for you. This area is also an outgoing affair to keep maintained and up to speed.



Review of the Data

As you organize your office, begin the organizing and review of all known loss data – insurance loss runs that may include workers compensation, auto liability, general liability, and property. The OSHA 300 logs are a basic requirement - do you have the required number of years in file? Also look for damage, accident investigations, and near miss reports. Later on, we will discuss getting with other specialty areas in detail for their data



Who currently keeps the insurance loss runs and OSHA logs if they are not your responsibility?



Insurance loss runs are reports specific to your organization that track injuries and provide details on what happened and the potential cost of the incident. Are these documents available to you? Who gets the Insurance loss data? Many times, insurance loss runs go to finance and may not have been made available to the safety manager. Ask if you can get on any distribution lists and if you can have access to any online claims databases.



Internal damage reports and repair reports will also provide insights on where to go to look for underlying issues and problem areas.



Loss Analysis

Using loss data is like driving a car while looking into a rearview mirror. However, to begin the work of eliminating the repeating types of losses, loss analysis is an essential function. The data when properly analyzed provides targeted areas to implement the risk and control hazard control process.  The data can show where "low hanging fruit" is for a few early successes.



You need a five year history of losses to begin any type of annual trending.  Evaluate the data and how it has been presented.   Is it in an understandable form that provides information for management and employees? Does it communicate the loss record of the organization?  Can you begin to set priorities with the current loss producing data?



Organizing your day - Continue getting out and about

As discussed in Day 4, you should be trying to spend some time each day out where the action is occurring, where the work is being done.  All of the acquired data and information is only theory until you can match what you have read and heard with what you can see is being done.  Talk to as many people as you can, asking questions but listening intently. Networking is essential and the only way to network is to simply make the effort to get around and talk to all levels of the organization.



You may have to begin to suggest corrective actions or intervene when you see specific uncontrolled hazardous situations. This is why you took the time to get your mission and authority clear. The first few times you have to intervene will require tack and a bit of diplomacy. Jumping down someone’s throat, a demeaning approach, being overbeari

The position of safety manager must rely on effective communications with all aspects of the organization. You must be able to receive and send messages to others that maintain trust and keeps the process you want to develop continuously improving.

People Skills
Do an assessment of your people skills. Are you approachable? What is your communication style? Do you prefer direct on-on-one discussion; feel comfortable in front of groups, in front of management? Do you prefer to use e-mails and rely on memos? How does your style and type of communication match your organization, manager and those to whom you must communicate?

Communication Skills
The development of a safety process cannot be done entirely from your office. You will have to walk and talk, meet people, develop a rapport with virtually ever part of the organization. You will have to keep the trust of those who may fear to bring issues to light and cause them problems. You will be balancing between various groups, causes, and the complexity found in any organization.

Walk and Listen
You should be visiting or establishing contact with as many of the other disciplines as possible within the organization - Maintenance, Quality Control, Risk Management, Security, Environmental, Training, Human Resources, Fleet, Custodial, etc.  Their issues are also your issues and give indicators of the current organizational culture.

Listen intently
Follow Steven Covey’s principle of “Seeking first to understand then to be understood”. What are their issues, concerns, observations - you are in support of these personnel and need them as allies.  Listen and learn before jumping to conclusions and reacting.
If you do not review your skills and can not gain rapport, you may have serious long term problems that are basically your fault and damage the position you hold.

Day 4 Summary
Begin the process of learning the various departments, their needs, concerns and issues.

Nathan Crutchfield
N_crutch@comcast.net