Safe And Sound: Avoid Accidents and Ensure Security

As a manager, you have an important role in implementing and enforcing your company’s safety and security policies. This includes educating your employees, monitoring their behavior, and enforcing compliance. You also have a duty to watch for potential hazards and see to it that danger is minimized. If you see gaps between practices, safety, and security needs, then you must ensure they are addressed.

Safety is about protections from hazards in the workplace such as those caused by equipment, facilities, disease, natural forces, or human error. For people working in manufacturing, distribution, or transportation, hazards are an everyday part of life. Even in offices there are health hazards, especially in an era of a widespread pandemic. No one wants to see someone get hurt or sick, and most accidents are preventable.
 

Organizations typically have a safety department that may report to HR, an operational leader (such as the Chief Operating Officer) or the head of Environmental Health and Safety. This individual or department is the key figure in defining the policies, processes, training and data collection needed to ensure worker safety.

Other parts of the organization will collaborate with the safety professionals including legal, HR and the operational managers (e.g. plant manager, warehouse manager). There are also external bodies such as government inspection agencies, the companies you supply, and industry associations that might have an interest in safety. Finally, particularly in non-office environments, it is understood that each worker has a critical role to play in keeping themselves and their co-workers safe day-to-day. 

Phew, that’s a relief, isn’t it? With so many smart people involved in safety, presumably, you are off the hook. Maybe you can skip this section and spend some time answering emails – okay, not so fast! As a manager, you have an important responsibility to keep your employees safe.

Safety First

Let’s start with the most important thing you need to do in keeping your employees safe: keep your eyes and ears open. Many hazards are clearly visible if you make the effort to look for them. Is there something on the floor that someone will trip over? Are vehicles zooming around when people are walking by? Is someone trying to lift a heavy object by themselves? If you are alert to safety hazards, just as a responsible adult, then you can make sure they are dealt with. 

Well, that takes care of eyes; what about ears? This simply means listening to your employees if they suggest something might be a danger. Take the time to talk to them about possible dangers. It’s all about alertness and paying attention.

Now there are also some more formal responsibilities:

1. Know the rules. You need to know the safety rules of your organization. Your safety professional will be happy to tell you what they are, and there should also be safety documentation. Ask for it. Read it. Then make sure the rules are being followed.

2. Education and training. You don’t need to give training, but you do need to be sure it is being given. You should also care enough about your team’s well-being that you’ll check that the quality of the training is up to par. Sit in on a session. Ask employees how they will use the training they just completed. Ask them to what degree their learning will help them do their work. Make sure they understand it.

3. Submit any necessary reports and keep any necessary documentation. You may need to submit reports and keep documentation related to safety such as an accident report. Do you know what is required in your organization? Not sure? Then ask your safety department.

4. Enforce the rules. Did we mention that it’s not enough to know the rules? Ensure employees know the rules and make sure they are being followed. We did cover it in point 1, but let's mention it again. It’s rarely the case that accidents occur because there wasn’t a rule. It’s usually because someone didn’t follow the rule. Your job is to make sure they do, even if it seems like overkill. 

5. Build a safety culture. If you are in an organization where there are serious hazards (i.e. a factory not an accounting consultancy), then there is a good chance HR will be promoting a safety culture. Take your lead from them on how to make safety a top of mind concern every day.

6. Identify safety gaps. Look for dangers and collaborate with the safety professionals to close any safety gaps. 

Let’s Talk about Security

Security is about protections from hazards caused by humans deliberately intending to cause harm. There are not many people going around deliberately causing harm, but it doesn’t take many to make life miserable for us all.

As a manager who looks out for your team, you’ll want to understand and support the security measures your company has in place.

Who Is Responsible for Security?

It gets a little complicated in deciding who is responsible for security. The two big buckets are:
 

• Physical security (e.g. fences, guards, locked doors) – that’s usually handled by the facilities department
• Cybersecurity (e.g. passwords, firewalls) – that’s usually handled by IT. It gets complicated by the fact that parts of physical security may be outsourced to a third-party firm (e.g. a company that supplies guards and alarm systems) and the facilities department may report into HR, CFO, VP of Administration or somewhere else.

As a manager, you really ought to know who is who in the organization. If you don’t know, then  find out. In fact, there’s a general lesson here that as a manager you pay a lot more attention to the broader organization than you do when you are just a regular employee.

Now ask either the person in charge of physical security or cybersecurity what their biggest problem is. Is it an obscure anarchist hacker group living in a super cool warehouse in L.A? Is it a team of rogue MI5 agents who are breaking into your office to steal purses? No, the biggest problem is that employees flout the rules (e.g. propping open a door that’s meant to be secure or giving their password to a random caller who claims to be from IT).

And this brings us to the broader responsibility. Every employee has to play their part, and you are responsible for ensuring your team does so. 

A Manager’s Role in Security

Specifically, as a manager, you should:

1. Know the rules. Learn what policies and procedures have been put in place by whoever in your organization takes the lead on physical security and cybersecurity. Go one better and learn why those policies are in place. If something doesn’t make sense to you then ask.

2. Educate. Make sure employees know the rules. Ask them if they understand why the rules are in place, and if they don’t know, then tell them. 

3. Enforce. Yeah, I know this sounds harsh. You don’t want to be the cop going around berating people for bending the rules. Yet, you’ve got to do it. This more than anything else is how you improve security. (OK, maybe we should call it, “Enforce Nicely.” Doesn’t that sound better?)

4. Report. If there is a security incident, report it. This is true even if nothing bad happened. If somehow a strange person with no security badge was walking around, then you should inform the person in charge of physical security.

5. Identify security gaps. The heads of physical and cybersecurity can’t be everywhere at once; they can’t know every possible security weakness. Keep your eyes and ears open to learn about security gaps and work to close them. Don’t overlook the security issues of employees who work off-site--they are your responsibility too. Set up a call with these employees and with someone who handles security in your company to see if there are any issues you need to be aware of. If you can’t arrange a call, then a security professional can help you craft a questionnaire to check for issues that may need attention.

Common Security Issues

What are the common security issues in your organization? What have you seen? What stories have you heard? It’s not a bad idea to ask some old-timers what’s happened over the years.

Because you are a responsible human being, you will want to look after the safety and security of your employees. Even an irresponsible human being will want to do so because there are compliance issues involved. You need to work with HR and any compliance professionals in your organization to make sure you know the rules relevant in your organization. There is a pretty good chance that there will be legal or company compliance rules around providing:

•    Affirmative Action training
•    Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) training
•    Discrimination training
•    Ethics and Code of Conduct training
•    Human Rights training
•    Privacy training
•    Sexual Harassment training
•    Workplace Harassment training
•    Workplace Safety training
•    Workplace Violence Prevention training

Does that sound like fun? Maybe not, but that’s why you get paid the big bucks. Remember, you’re not on your own in sorting this out; HR and other departments will probably be doing the heavy lifting. Your job is to be a superb collaborator.

Yes, it’s true that a manager has a lot of different things they need to keep an eye on, not just getting results from their team. Two of those other things are safety and security.
 

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