As an organisation, if you decide to invest time, money and energy into your safety culture and systems, you want them to be highly effective and enduring. Often, organisations commence any change process very enthusiastically, training their entire workforce and implementing safety programs, only to be disappointed when the changes they were hoping to see, and the promises they had been made, do not materialise.
Organisations operate as organic systems, which means that any change made to one part of the system will have a flow-on effect to other components of the system. Unless each and every part of the system is prepared for change and strategies are in place to support the change, your culture may stagnate.
Embedding change into culture is a crucial element of any sustainable change initiative. Research demonstrates that much of what people learn will be forgotten within six months, while research in culture and social change shows that people’s behaviour reverts quickly to pre-intervention status if not embedded into everyday practice. For this reason, organisations need to invest as much energy into their embedding strategies as they do their overall safety program.
At Soteris, we have specialist expertise and a proven track record in achieving successful and sustainable change.
We know that for any change to be truly successful and enduring:
• It needs to be embedded into the system and visibly supported by its leaders;
• This support needs to cascade down through all levels of the organisation;
• People require a compelling reason for change;
• They need to understand and agree with the reasons for change;
• People are much more invested in something when they actively participate in creating it, see it as worth their while, and have ongoing responsibility for it; and
• We know that people need to feel confident that they either have the skills to succeed or can learn the skills to succeed whenever they try something new.
Every organisation is different, and each of these elements of successful change need to be combined in the right way and at the right time to achieve maximum return on your safety investment. Achieving a successful and sustainable safety culture is a bit like making a personal commitment to improve your health and fitness. If you make the decision to get fit and healthy, you will probably get a plan for eating healthily, exercising, and maintaining a balanced lifestyle. The secret to long-term success is coming up with a plan that works for you and then having the discipline and strategies to stick with it.
The Soteris Infinity program, based on innovative and best practice research, is custom designed to assist your organisation to achieve a strong and sustainable safety culture providing the following services:
• Developing a change plan designed to suit the specific and unique needs of your organisation;
• Tailored advice and coaching to embed the changes you are seeking;
• Hands-on support, guidance and assistance to all levels of your organisation in implementing the changes you are seeking;
• Training and skill development in successfully embedding changes to safety culture and systems;
• Transfer of learning strategies;
• Identifying measures of success; and
• Monitoring and reporting on your success measures over time (or assisting you to do this in-house), and providing recommendations for further improvement if needed.
The Soteris Infinity program complements our Culture by Design, Active Leaders and Coaching Excellence programs to help your organisation protect its people and achieve a truly mature and sustainable positive safety culture.
Contact us for more information on our Infinity program.