SafeStart is not ‘just’ a training programme. In order to embed the individual behaviour change and sustain it over the long term, it is essential that organisations build upon the initial foundation created during the original training phase by integrating SafeStart into other areas of the existing Safety Management System and into wider business initiatives such as quality, productivity and customer service. By doing so, the impact on the overall culture and performance will be tangible and long lasting.
Advanced SafeStart Units – Critical Decisions
There are six Extended Application Units, all crafted to strengthen the initial SafeStart training and furnish extra applications for SafeStart concepts. In tandem with the appropriate training plan, these units can add up to five years of SafeStart sustainability. The first of the six units should be taken some three to six months after the core units have been completed.
Each Extended Application Unit lasts between an hour and an hour-and-a-half and has been created to provide an annual or biannual follow-up to the SafeStart programme. The idea is not only to review SafeStart concepts, but also present more advanced ideas and methods to further develop employee safety skills. For example, one area of focus targets how being rushed, frustrated, fatigued or complacent can affect decision making and generate an array of potentially risky outcomes.
By implementing the Extended Application Units, SafeStart becomes even more sustainable. The fresh concepts provide both stimulation and self-reflection, further building upon the foundations already laid down during the initial training.
SafeStart for Performance
Human factors impact all aspects of our lives. Not just safety.
SafeStart for Performance was developed to help people use SafeStart techniques to reduce the daily errors that cost time, effort and money, both in and outside of the workplace.
Fewer errors ensue when workers improve their situational awareness. SafeStart Performance gives you the real-time techniques that offset costly incidents and reduce inefficiency. Through the application of error-reduction strategies, our course gives businesses a tried-and-tested approach for sharpening focus and raising performance levels.
As every action, role and department can be detrimentally affected by errors, SafeStart Performance strategies produce broader benefits for organisations:
- Quality improvements
- Productivity improvements
- Reduced losses
- Waste reduction
- Delays becoming less common
- Customer satisfaction improvements
- Better self-awareness among (and care taken by) employees.
SafeStart Personal Ergonomics
SafeStart Personal Ergonomics tackles poor habits and human error to effectively resolve ergonomic challenges. The programme combines the traditional understanding of body positioning with personal safety ideas which enable employees to recognise the tell-tale signs of repetitive strain and overexertion before they cause injuries.
This training starts with a compelling presentation of critical ergonomic strategies, including:
- Posture and physical positioning
- Non-injurious stretches
- Exercises to prevent injuries
- Tactics for recovery and strengthening
- Lifting methods
- Understanding cognitive functions
- Habitual ergonomics.
SafeStart Personal Ergonomics treats the whole body, but with a focus on the places where the majority of problems occur: the shoulders and lower back. Our tried-and-tested programme leads workers to a personal realisation that is then supported by the techniques and methods that help them to always recognise, at the decisive moment, the safe ergonomic path.
Musculoskeletal strains and overexertion are often caused by poor habitual positioning of the body. This course provides employees with the awareness and skills needed to maintain healthy posture in their personal lives – improving their well-being when they are back at work.
SafeStart Personal Ergonomics employs the same techniques and concepts as SafeStart, producing a consistent understanding – while bolstering safety knowledge, habits and techniques in each training session.
In addition, the course combines with SafeTrack and Rate Your State to help supervisors be productive when observing or intervening. The established SafeStart ideas, in concert with a shared safety language, amplify engagement and simplify implementation.
SafeTrack
SafeStart and SafeTrack combine to produce a dynamic approach that makes the workplace safer, with the two programmes easy to integrate into existing safety management systems.
SafeStart instructs individuals on ways to both remain safe and prevent others being injured. But what is SafeTrack?
For more than four decades, organisations have used behavioural observation and feedback techniques as part of their safety management approach. Across the globe, injuries have fallen as a result. Success with this approach typically comes when the organisation is fully committed, and observers are well-trained and skilled in the task. SafeTrack reinvigorates that proven approach with valuable insights and impactful exchanges, providing useful observations and productive feedback which will reduce injury-causing errors and improve safety awareness at the personal level.
The course is mainly concerned with showing individuals how to both observe and contribute effective positive reinforcement to their colleagues. Additionally, SafeTrack shows ways to positively modify risky actions that are revealed by observation. When it comes to desired safe behaviours (for example, positioning oneself out of the line-of-fire, keeping eyes on task and maintaining balance, traction or grip), impactful positive reinforcement is not possible without the person being seen by an observer or their action being replayed on video. (A driver won’t take much from being complimented on their safe steering of a wide load if the speaker did not actually see it happen.)
SafeStart also shows workers how to track observations through careful recordkeeping techniques, allowing analytics to be monitored and reforms implemented.
Follow-Up Visits & Site Assessments
Building a sustainable programme is critical, both in terms of generating maximum return on investment, but also, and more importantly, to ensure long-term injury reduction. Once the original five units of the SafeStart training have been undertaken by participants, a follow-up visit to the site takes place, ensuring that the process remains on target and that clients maintain success beyond the short term.
During the follow-up visit, senior SafeStart consultants will interview front-line employees, in-company trainers, Steering Committee members and management alike to gauge impact and measure the effectiveness of the implementation. Training records and wider employee feedback are reviewed and all of the findings collated to determine the overall success of the programme in terms of the understanding and application of the key learning objectives of SafeStart.
Benchmarking these findings against best in class will lead to quantitative and qualitative assessment scores which will be communicated to the client through verbal feedback and a written report. The consultant will use these findings to help guide the client in developing an action plan for long-term success, sustainability and additional value release through the further integration of SafeStart into the fabric of the organisation.