While the head of safety and risk management may be responsible for the safety program, support at the highest levels is key to accomplishing safety goals.
By Del Lisk
So, you鈥檝e had your in-cab safety solution for several years, and after that first initial dramatic drop in collisions and associated costs, you鈥檙e now wondering if it鈥檚 still paying the kind of dividends that you want out of it.
I鈥檝e been in fleet safety for 34 years, and have seen certain best practices rise to the surface to help extract the most value from an in-cab safety solution over the long run; however, even fleets with new programs could benefit from considering these following five steps.
#1: Keep the Communication Going
When safety programs are rolled out, usually it is to enhance what is already a safety-focused culture and, as a result, communications are aimed at the drivers about how the program works. After that, fleets settle into a program, and the only conversations about the program may be between the driver and the coach or supervisor about individual safety performance.
But remember, that driver turnover in your fleet鈥攈owever low鈥攊s constant, and new drivers are entering the program mid-stream. Also, some drivers may have missed the initial communications on the program, or did not fully understand program details. For healthy engagement in the program, it鈥檚 important to promote a clear and accurate understanding of your safety program and that鈥檚 accomplished with keeping an open channel of communications with your drivers on a continuous basis.
For example, an event recorder with an inward and outward facing lens, can lead some drivers new to the program to erroneously believe that this is a surveillance camera and that their supervisor can spy on them. This, of course, isn鈥檛 true, but unless there are ongoing communications about how the program and technology work, misperceptions could arise.
#2: Implement Positive Recognition and Rewards
One of the best ways to engage your drivers in safety is to share with them the positive results of the program, and highlight and reward drivers who are doing everything right. Those good drivers who aren鈥檛 experiencing coachable events set examples for the rest of your fleet. Safety programs can bring so much good driver behavior to the surface, and sharing those great driving skills publicly gives the added benefit of showing other drivers that you have coaches, not adversaries, on your team.
One Lytx client puts on an annual 鈥淪uper Bowl鈥� between driving teams, competing for the best driver performance scores and the lowest number of coachable incidents. Another client hosts quarterly breakfasts between the fleet鈥檚 best drivers and the organization鈥檚 executives, to pause and recognize great driving.
Some clients identify drivers who have not triggered any events in their safety program and notify them to stop by the office. Assuming there鈥檚 an issue, drivers are pleasantly surprised when they are then thanked for performing so well. Actions like this change the perception of a safety program from a 鈥済otcha!鈥� program to a positive tool that encourages and acknowledges high performance. The net result of these efforts is to show that as an organization, you鈥檙e interested in helping all good drivers become better drivers.
#3: Look at the Bigger Picture Regularly
Technology changes, traffic patterns evolve and customer routes get reworked. In short, that means that your fleet is driving under dynamic conditions. Use the trends revealed by your safety program to determine if an update in policy, rules or route planning is in order.
For example, a periodic trend review for one client revealed that cell phone use was an escalating issue among their fleet, prompting a need to create a new policy and more enforcement around cell phone use.
Another transit client found that their buses were frequently getting into no-fault collisions at a specific city location, and this information was used to update routes to avoid that troublesome area.
#4: Use Your Safety Dashboard
You鈥檙e busy, your management鈥檚 busy and taking deep dives into the data produced by your safety program may feel more like the realm of a data Ph.D. One way to streamline program review is to leverage your safety dashboard of the key performance indicators influencing the success of your safety program.
Your dashboard can make safety program oversight much easier, especially when you can see, at a glance, trends around increases or decreases in collisions, coachable incidents, claims costs, top causes of collisions, and more. Plus, a dashboard neatly summarizes program status for other stakeholders in your organization.
#5: Make sure the organizational attitude aligns with your program goals
Your safety program鈥檚 biggest cheerleader should be in the C-suite. Keep a quarterly cadence of communications with the executive management team in order to keep them engaged and to proactively answer questions about how the program is going, what trends it鈥檚 revealing and where higher level support might be needed in order to increase the program鈥檚 effectiveness.
A lot of companies say that they have a culture of safety, but that may not be the case if members of the executive team aren鈥檛 echoing safety as an overall corporate priority, or incorporating it into the corporate values. While the head of safety and risk management may be responsible for the safety program, support at the highest levels is key to accomplishing safety goals. Keeping the program results on the C-suite radar helps everyone know that when it comes to safety, executives are walking the walk as well as talking the talk. | WA
Del Lisk serves as Vice President of Safety Services for Lytx (San Diego, CA), developer of the DriveCam video-based safety program. In this role, he serves as Lytx鈥檚 chief safety and training liaison for its more than 1,400 fleet clients. Del is a Certified Transportation Professional and an active member in several motor vehicle safety groups such as the National Safety Council鈥檚 Transportation Safety Division and the American Society of Safety Engineer鈥檚 Transportation Practice Specialty. Del has presented at countless expositions and has appeared on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and the Discovery Channel. Prior to joining Lytx, Del spent 21 years with Smith System Driver Improvement Institute, a leader in professional driver training, including seven years as company president. Del can be reached at [email protected].
