Strategic Safety Planning
Defining priorities, responsibilities, and ways to monitor safety within the business strategy.
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Advisory for Boards and C-Level Executives
The safety information that reaches the Board needs to be examined alongside what people encounter in operations. Advisory supports Boards, committees, and top management in decisions about culture and safety.
Discuss AdvisoryThe questions the Board asks management indicate what receives attention. When safety enters that conversation, both indicators and the conditions in which teams work need to be examined. The work is direct, with attention to executive decisions and institutional responsibility.
Issues that require senior leadership’s attention
The indicators presented to the Board need to be discussed alongside signals from technical functions and the field. Some of these signals may not appear in reports, although they are important for understanding operations.
The work also examines whether responsibilities are clear when production, deadlines, investment, and safety come into tension, and whether governance monitors the implementation of decisions as well as recorded results.
These questions make it possible to compare the stated direction with the organization’s practices.
When Advisory can help
The work can contribute:
- When reviewing safety governance.
- When indicators do not explain what is happening in operations.
- During leadership changes, expansion, or the integration of operations.
- When preparing or analyzing a Safety Culture Assessment.
- When the Board and management need to align responsibilities, priorities, and monitoring criteria.
- After critical events that call for reflection on decisions, barriers, and organizational learning.
Topics we address
Conversations may address cultural maturity, the quality of indicators, and leadership responsibilities. Presence in the field, responses to bad news, and executive sponsorship may also be on the agenda.
The discussion considers the Board’s perspective, leadership decisions, and operating conditions. These relationships help assess whether the way work is conducted supports the strategy.
How the work is conducted
Before the sessions, we work with participants to define which decision needs to be discussed and what information is available. Support can be provided for a specific need, in one session or a series of sessions, or on a recurring basis throughout a broader process.
When a deeper understanding of the culture is needed, a Safety Culture Assessment may be appropriate. Advisory can also connect with Strategic Safety Planning or the Safety Culture Transformation Program.
Scope and responsibility
Advisory supports judgment, direction, and governance. Formal responsibilities remain with the Board, management, technical functions, and the organization’s legally responsible parties.
The scope does not include fiduciary, legal, or operational duties outside the engagement.
Further reading
In this article, I discuss preparedness and the decisions that come before an accident.
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Safety Culture Assessment
Gaps between words and practice, cultural maturity, and priorities for leadership.
Explore the serviceSafety on senior leadership’s agenda.
Tell us which decision is under consideration and who needs to join the conversation.