Safety Management is not just a workflow, it is a culture. To successfully implement a safety mindset in an organization the owners/managers must promote a ‘just culture’ that rewards proactive safety actions. Once you have all workgroups committed to a safety culture there are a few simple processes you can put in place that will decrease operational risk while increasing customer service and profit.
Before you can mitigate risks you must first identify them. Since managers cannot be everywhere at all times it is important you implement a method for collecting and tracking safety reports submitted by users at all levels within the organization. This can be as simple as a dropbox where people can place notes to a more elaborate electronic submission and tracking system. Regardless, it is important to respect anonymity and that everyone within the organization understand the purpose being to improve safety, not place blame.
A Safety Manager should be tasked with reviewing safety reports and investigating, as appropriate. Often times investigations are superficial so care must be taken to truly identify the root cause(s). Asking five ‘Whys’ is a good method for drilling down to fundamental issues. For example, a safety report is submitted for inadvertently penetrating Class B airspace without a clearance. The superficial cause could be pilot lost situational awareness. Why (1) Pilot was not familiar with MFD features. Why (2) MFD features not covered in airplane checkout. Why (3) There are no documented aircraft checkout standards. Why (4) Policy is to let instructors determine proficiency. Why (5) That’s the way we have always done it. You get the picture. By drilling down the Safety Manager can present one or several improvements to help mitigate not only this issue from recurring but other similar events as well.
Ideally, safety reports should be categorized and tracked over time to gain global insights and trends. This helps managers better understand areas of greatest risk. Are implemented changes having the desired impact over time? By quantifying risk managers can proactively implement changes to policy, SOP and/or allocate resources to mitigate future events. Not only will you improve the safety of an operation but you will find increased reliability, efficiency and profits as a result.
Safety management does not need to be elaborate or expensive. But it does need to be supported at all levels of the organization. Check these links for additional tools and see how NeedleNine can provide you the ability to seamlessly integrate.
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