SVPs: a new approach for safety leaders

27 Jun

In our last edition of Massive Insights, we shared quantitative data from our research into the safety experience in Australia's high-risk industries.

The data paints an encouraging picture, reflecting what our collaborators have anecdotally reported over the years.

And yet, we know the world of safety and wellbeing isn’t static. At Everyday Massive we’re always looking for ways to meet the moment, and oftentimes this has us looking at what’s happening across the globe.

So let’s take a look at three of those trends we observe are currently having a big impact on safety.

The competition for top talent is fierce, and this holds true for safety professionals. We've seen exceptional leaders build robust safety cultures, but when they leave, the engagement and accountability they've fostered often leave with them. This ‘key person risk’ can significantly impact safety performance and, consequently, a business's bottom line.
The challenge extends beyond retaining top safety talent. Attracting workers willing to engage in high-risk jobs has become increasingly difficult — you might even be feeling that in your organisation. This is particularly evident in industries like mining, where Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) roles are common, and the juiciest salaries and benefits don’t seem to help with attraction anymore. The post-COVID world has amplified these issues, with many young people becoming more selective about the work they’re willing to do. This trend is likely to worsen as the workforce ages and new generations enter the job market.
So the question arises: how can we create a safety and wellbeing experience that’s far-reaching and impactful, transcending individual leaders?
The role of the employer is continuously expanding, driven by changes in legislation and evolving societal expectations. There is an increased focus on enhancing the employee experience (though we’d call it the human experience), a heightened sense of employer responsibility around wellbeing, and the pressure of financial wellbeing due to the current cost of living crunch.
The responsibilities of Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) and their officers are growing, placing additional pressure on people leaders and supervisors. They‘re now expected to juggle roles ranging from mentor and coach to friend and parent. We know from the Gallup State of the Global Workforce report in 2023, the phenomenon of "quiet quitting" is on the rise, particularly among middle manager s. We suspect it’s these middle managers who most likely bear the brunt of these expanding responsibilities.
From a safety perspective, while we ask employers to cover all bases, the reality is that safety cannot be omnipresent. The challenge, then, is how to integrate safety deeply into the fabric of the organisation.
We live in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world. High-consequence, low-frequency events, such as cyber-attacks and natural disasters, disrupt workplaces and supply chains. Geopolitical instability and disruptive technologies like AI and robotics add further complexity.
Amid this complexity, ensuring safety remains a clear and resonant priority is a formidable task. Safety must be simple enough to cut through the noise and effective enough to withstand the disruptions of the modern business environment.

Rethinking safety: questions to consider

At Everyday Massive, we've been contemplating how to approach safety differently. We’ve been asking:

How can we address the key person risk and attract and retain talent for high-risk work?

How can we integrate safety into the organisational fabric to ensure its omnipresence?

How can safety and wellbeing resonate in a complex world?

Well, we think we have a solve.

Enter the Safety Value Proposition

The quickest route to improving the safety experience is by investing in engagement and leadership capability. However, to elevate safety beyond these areas, we propose a new approach.

We see an SVP as a missing piece in high-risk industries—or any industry striving to enhance its safety culture. This year, we’ve partnered with four major Australian organisations to develop their SVPs — we can’t tell you much about who they are (you know, NDAs and all), but they’re big and complex. In these organisations, the SVP becomes the safety operating system with an associated promise that can help transform safety and wellbeing into a core business strategy that will outlast an individual safety leader.

By making safety and wellbeing a core organisational focus, it becomes integrated into every program, initiative, and process, ensuring consistent application across the organisation.

It starts with a safety promise

An effective safety promise articulates the organisation's commitment to protecting its workforce, aligning safety and wellbeing with the company's culture and operational practices.

When we get the promise right, it can enhance employee engagement, reduce workplace incidents, decrease environmental impact, and improve overall organisational performance—a quadruple win.

A science-based approach to innovation

Like the safety leaders we work with, we value evidence-based approaches. While we’re still building the evidence base for the effectiveness of an SVP (sometimes the temporary shortcoming of innovation), we can say that the way we develop an SVP involves a science-based methodology, incorporating human-centred design principles.

This approach allows us to discover, define, test, and iterate our thinking before fully integrating the promise, behaviours, and commitments into an organisation.

As we all know, effective safety initiatives are never set-and-forget. Over time, with an SVP, we can measure the safety experience and make necessary adjustments, ensuring continuous improvement.

We think SVP’s represent a transformative approach for safety leaders. By embedding safety deeply into organisational culture and practices, we can overcome key person risks, attract and retain great people, and navigate the complexities of the modern workplace.

This holistic approach ensures that safety and wellbeing become integral to the organisational fabric, driving sustained improvement in safety culture and performance.

If this sounds like something that might be valuable for your organisation, reach out here as we’d love to chat.