Hello, my name is René de Koster and I'm the chair of the jury for the safest warehouse of the year award. A journalist once asked me what are the drivers for warehouse accidents. What should a manager do to improve safety?
Then I tried to answer this question, and I thought to myself, I don't know. There is no academic research that really explains how to boost safety in the workplace yet. That's when I started to research safety. And one of the most surprising findings was that one of the important variables from previous literature, safety consciousness of the workers, did not have any impact on safety. Instead we found that the most important variable was the leadership of the manager.
Top managers who score high on safety-specific transformational leadership have far fewer accidents in all categories. than the managers scoring poorly. And to confirm these study results we noticed that the logistics company Siva did not only win prizes for the safest warehouse but in addition for the best manager in logistics.
That's when I started to research deeper the relation between safety and different kinds of leadership and management styles. So what is safety specific transformational leadership? You probably wonder. And how does this relate to SDG 8, decent work and economic growth?
Well, safety management is directly related to decent work and economic growth. work and economic growth because it's about improving the quality of work life. There are five variables that determine safety specific transformational leadership.
First setting the example as a manager. Second, inspiring and motivating your workers. Third, intellectually stimulating and empowering your workers with respect to safety.
Four, you have to listen to your workers and do something with what you hear. And finally, reward your workers for safe behaviour. Our research shows that managers who scored high in safety-specific leadership were also the most likely to initiate all kinds of other safety measures.
This corresponds to one of the targets of SDGA. protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers. An accident-free working environment is essential for the well-being of your employees.
We can distinguish two types of managers with respect to how they try to achieve their goals. First, managers with a focus on promotion. And second, managers with a focus on prevention. Our studies found that prevention focus had a strong impact on safety transformational leadership, and thereby on accidents. Prevention focus managers try to achieve their goals by avoiding obstacles that could cause accidents.
They are better transformational leaders with respect to safety and also appear to have happier workers and fewer accidents on the shop floor. A manager with a promotion focus on the other hand is mostly interested in pushing the performance of the company. The question we then asked was is there a trade-off between safety and warehouse performance?
Most people actually assume there is a negative impact, because if you work more safely, you might think that you also need to work slower, at the expense of productivity. But that's not the case. There is however a negative effect on the short term, because you need to train people for safety, possibly at the expense of productivity. Though we are still in the middle of our research, we hypothesize that safety might be a driver for company performance. Safety is a vehicle for good work conditions.
If you work towards fewer accidents, you have to improve. The working conditions of your employees. This will likely increase employee satisfaction and efficiency. and that is realized of ergonomics and physical aspects, as well as through leadership and worker behavior.
These aspects might together lead to an increase in the company's performance, which showcases that there are sound economic reasons to focus on SDG 8 at both a strategic as well as an operational level. In the Supply Chain Management Master Program, we teach how desired productivity can be achieved through the right process design and control. But now there is also a second dimension, which is how should you manage the process?
On one hand, the productivity and performance of an operation are driven by the process design and control. And on the other hand, by the way you run the process. It is important to understand that how you lead your employees also determines their performance. And that can go beyond the process design.
So, when you are working on projects, don't forget there is not only the technical aspect of it, but also the technical aspects of the process. but also the behavioral aspect that matters. By looking at your projects from the people perspective, you will be able to increase performance beyond the technical design. Therefore, protecting safe working environments for all workers should be a first priority of any manager. This will provide quality jobs, which enables growth and productivity for the company.
In the end, And safe working conditions will stimulate the economy, while it does not harm people or the environment. Therefore achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals starts with you, the leaders of the future.