The theme of the 2016 Safety Leadership Conference is “Building World-Class Safety Leadership,” and I hope you can join us in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Sept. 19-21 for educational sessions, keynotes, workshops, tours and networking opportunities related to building a world-class safety culture and becoming a leader for safety at your company and in your industry.
Every responsible company strives for a safe working environment for employees. But many don’t take the next step that allows them to achieve true safety leadership. Perhaps they think that building a world-class safety culture is out of their reach. The 2016 Safety Leadership Conference keynoters, speakers and sponsors have a different message: Every company can become a leader in safety.
The ability to create a world-class safety culture exists for every business, in every industry: manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation, chemical, construction, retail, food service, agriculture and recycling, to name a few. In these industries, humans interact closely with heavy machinery and hazardous substances, making safety of paramount importance to the wellbeing of employees and the health of the business.
Keynote speaker Shawn M. Galloway, president of ProAct Safety, will offer his advice on how to capture new value from within your organization. According to Galloway, “All leaders desire to get more effort from their people, effort resulting more from internal desire and less from external prompting. Strategic thinking can create value at just about every level, but people need a reason to believe in what they choose to invest their discretionary effort in… No organization can afford disaffected workers. But influence hearts and minds, and hands and feet will follow.”
Based on his latest book, Inside Strategy: Value Creation from within Your Organization, Shawn Galloway will share how to take the greatest strategic thinking and focus in inside your organization. Safety will never become a core value within a company culture until the safety strategy is aligned with and supports the business strategy, rather than hindering or constricting it, says Galloway. Every organization has a “safety culture,” but could it be better? Yes, he says, but not by doing more in safety.
“It is achieved by continuously doing things better and capturing and delivering real value,” said Galloway.
We often hear talk of excellence in business and safety should be no different. Companies that achieve business excellence often are considered safety leaders. The best safety cultures strategically are led by business leaders and integrated into the business.
What we’ve been hearing from experts is that in order for workplaces to achieve world-class safety, they must look beyond concepts like “zero injuries.” A lack of injuries does not translate to a world-class safety culture.
The expert panelists we’ve lined up for the four tracks of the 2016 Safety Leadership Conference – Safety and Risk Management, Construction, Compliance and Safety Technology – will examine concepts like transforming the safety culture, using leading indicators to improve safety, strategically integrating EHS into the business model, creating an engaged workforce, maintaining continuous improvement and achieving true safety leadership.
For more information about our four tracks, keynotes, individual education sessions, workshops, site visits, networking opportunities and more, visit http://safetyleadershipconference.com/slc16/Public/Enter.aspx.