Skilled and Experienced or a Proven Leader – What Type of Safety Manager Would You Hire?

Here’s one professional who says a true safety leader shows commitment to excellence, a strong work ethic and personal accountability. Skill and experience are things you can teach.

When he was hired 12 years ago, Bill D’Amico wasn’t what most might have considered the predictable and obvious choice as global director of safety and health for pipe-joint manufacturer Victaulic Company of Pennsylvania.

But a 2010 fatality at a Victaulic foundry became a defining event and may have prompted company executives to think differently. Never again, ownership vowed, and was determined to recruit a safety leader who could radically improve safety performance and safety culture. Enter D’Amico.   

“I had zero safety experience, so why in god’s name would a global company of 5,000 people that just had a fatality hire someone who didn’t know a damn thing about safety or foundries,” he said, during an October panel discussion at the … Read more...

Leaders2Leaders: How Can You Maintain a Safety Culture Over the Long Term?

Avoid focusing too much on a top-down approach to safety culture. Employees must feel they own health and safety in their individual workplaces.
Avoid focusing too much on a top-down approach to safety culture. Employees must feel they own health and safety in their individual workplaces.

To be truly effective, health and safety needs to move beyond policy and become rooted deep into the culture of the organisation.

Great safety cultures do not happen by chance. The best safety cultures are continuous works in progress and need careful managing by health and safety leaders. As we learn in the sixth episode of Leaders2Leaders, “How Can You Maintain a Safety Culture Over the Long Term?” culture and culture improvement cannot be limited to small pockets of the business. It must run from senior leadership through to the shop floor and even embrace third-party contractors, according to a group of five safety leaders from companies noted for their world-class safety cultures.

“People ask me, how many people I have in my safety organisation? My answer? … Read more...