How effective are your safety people? How are they regarded by your management team? As collaborative partners or as is often the case, second-tier members; compliance-police, technically proficient but unable to provide the support that managers need? Michael Emery Director at Securus Health & Safety.
A problem the professional body, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), have been wrestling with for a decade or more, is how to raise the profile and status of its practitioners. As long ago as 1999, long before health and safety would be pilloried for the disproportionate and incorrect decisions made by safety officials, articles appeared in the profession’s own journal lampooning the worst tendencies of the safety practitioner. Writing in March and April of that year, Mike Buttolph, a visiting Fellow at Cranfield University with many years’ experience of the NHS and BBC, correctly anticipated that the progress of safety was being damaged by the way some practitioners worked and that the underlying issue was one of effectiveness. He believed that coaching and mentoring skills could make all the difference.
Again in October 2005, IOSH published a report entitled: What practitioners do, a survey of UK Registered Safety Practitioners to determine their roles and tasks. The study established the diversity and complexity of the safety professional’s role and noted in particular that amongst the core tasks were high levels of informing and discussing. The report concluded by observing the implications this would have for training and guidance materials needed to support competence in these areas, particularly in communication skills. And yet many may observe that the safety profession remains obsessed with technical training and the almost total absence of soft-skills training for practitioners continues to undermine the work they do and is ultimately detrimental to the profession and to business, leaving employees and employers at risk.So why is it that investing in your safety function’s soft-skills – in coaching and mentoring skills in particular, could make all the difference in terms of its effectiveness and therefore the protection it provides your employees, your organisation and ultimately yourself?
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), coaching and mentoring are both development techniques based on the use of discussions to enhance the skills, knowledge or work performance of an individual. Coaching is a non-directive form of development where the coach, using highly developed listening skills and by asking insightful questions, pulls ideas, suggestions and plans from the coachee. Mentoring uses the same skills as coaching but is generally used to describe a situation where a more experienced colleague uses his or her greater knowledge and understanding to support the development of another.
There are numerous models of coaching, each providing different processes or methodologies for solving problems and each with their own unique nuances. The most famous of the models, and the one most students of coaching are introduced to first, is the GROW model which is normally attributed to Sir John Whitmore. The different stages of GROW are:
- Goal the goal for this conversation, what is it you want to achieve;
- Reality the background, who, what, where etc., assumptions that may be limiting progress;
- Options what could take this forward, what’s possible?
- Wrap-up the agreement, what are we committed to doing and when?
Whatever the model, and GROW is by no means the only recognised model, the fundamental objective of coaching is an alliance between the coach and the coachee which serves the coachee’s agenda. Responsibility for finding the solution to a problem is never wrestled away from the coachee; the coach is simply there to guide and support the coachee in his/her exploration. This will strike a chord with business leaders everywhere who know that solutions to health and safety problems – if they’re to be sustainable, have to be practicable and have to be owned by managers. This is absolutely consistent with coaching principles.
Once the preserve of executives and bright young things on a fast-track to the top, coaching is increasingly becoming a standard feature of corporate life and coaching skills are absolutely necessary for the modern safety practitioner. Why? Because practitioners rarely understand and appreciate the pressures and operational constraints that exist within organisations and which influence the choices open to managers and business leaders. Coaching skills are required for the practitioner to form a productive alliance with duty-holders, to fully understand and empathise with their position and support them in exploring their problems and finding the best, most practicable solutions in their circumstances. And why mentoring skills? Because safety practitioners know about the law and the standards that need to be achieved and how others have resolved issues and this is the greater knowledge and understanding they bring to the conversation. Practitioners who are coaches and mentors listen and ask more than do others. They identify limiting assumptions and challenge them with a view to opening up further possibilities. They believe that managers and others are capable and resourceful and they use coaching techniques to get the best from them.
Few would dispute that in many more businesses today managers are better educated about their health and safety responsibilities than was ever the case. This may be because in many more businesses today health and safety is afforded a higher priority than was ever the case, a result of new legislation perhaps and tougher penalties by the courts, or because employees are better educated about risks and less willing to be exposed to them. Whatever the original motivation for this recent enlightenment, managers are more demanding of the support they receive from safety practitioners and less acquiescent. Some observers may be questioning whether safety practitioners have developed to quite the same degree.The message to business leaders is clear. Making functional alliances, supporting duty-holders and being the collaborative partners you want your safety people to be, requires skills over and above those needed to be a safety professional. Investing in your safety function’s soft-skills may make the world of difference.
Michael Emery, Director
Securus Health & Safety.
