Worley

Through this article, Britt Howard emphasizes the importance of mastering the basics of safety leadership in creating and maintaining a safe work environment. He outlines the foundational Three E’s and expands them into the Ten E’s in Safety Leadership, highlighting the need for a balanced integration of traditional and innovative safety practices. Britt also underscores the necessity of anticipating, recognizing, analyzing and controlling hazards to ensure effective, safe work planning and execution.  

 I recently attended a North America HSE Summit in Austin, TX, focusing primarily on the Mature elements of a Safety Culture and Engaged Safety Leadership. As I was completing the last day of the summit, I thought about the developing leaders who need to understand and utilize the basics of safety leadership before they can genuinely deploy mature safety leadership techniques. The Three E’s in Safety Management is how I was “baptized” in the safety discipline academically (Marshall University Graduate School 1992 - 1994) and where the work is done (Allide Colloids Chemical Company in 1995).   

 Those Three E’s are:                                

 ● Engineer out the Hazard  

 ● Educate the work-family member to recognize and manage the hazard through policy and procedures  

 ● Enforce compliance with the policy and procedures that drive safe work planning and execution  

Over the years, I expanded the Three E’s until I landed on a fundamental Ten E’s in Safety Leadership that I wrote in 2009.

The Ten E’s in Safety Leadership was progressive at the time and helped me and others serve our work families in the right areas of safety leadership.

 1. Expectations - acknowledge all work family members of what you want them to do.  

2. Explanation - explain why it is essential for the work-family to work safely.  

3. Example - everyone follows the same safety rules.  

4. Engineering - eliminating as many hazards as possible through physical design.  

5. Education - train everyone on how to deal with hazards.