Let’s be honest – how many times have you sat through a safety meeting and thought, “Well, that was 30 minutes I’ll never get back”? If you’re nodding along, you’re not alone. And according to Shawn Galloway, CEO of ProAct Safety, there’s a really good reason why most safety programs feel like they’re just checking boxes instead of actually keeping people safe.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
In the latest Manufacturing Meet Up episode, Ed and Alvaro welcome safety culture expert Shawn Galloway to the show–and they’re not having a typical “wear your PPE and follow the rules” conversation.
Ready for a truth bomb? Shawn says most organizations are treating safety like a problem to solve instead of value to create. “The absence of failure is not necessarily the presence of excellence,” he explains. Ouch. That hits different, doesn’t it?
Think about it – how many plants celebrate going X days without an incident, but can’t actually define what safety excellence looks like in their facility? Shawn’s worked across every industry imaginable, and he sees this pattern everywhere.
Your Supervisors Are the Real MVPs (Or Your Biggest Problem)
Want to know where safety culture really lives and breathes? It’s not in the executive boardroom – it’s with your frontline supervisors. Shawn puts it bluntly: “If you want to know how many potential subcultures you have, it’s how many first-line supervisors you’ve got.”
Yet these are often the most under-trained, under-resourced people in your organization. They’re working the most hours, getting paid the least, and somehow expected to be the culture change agents. No pressure, right?
Making Safety the Easy Choice
So what’s the solution? Here again, Shawn’s insights got our attention: Shawn used Amazon’s one-click purchase option as an example of how organizations simplify user experience to affect behavior (in this case, making it even easier for customers to buy the item on their screen). His question for manufacturers? “What can we do to enable the safe choice to be the easy choice?”
When we pile on unnecessary bureaucracy and make reporting a near-miss feel like filling out tax forms, people naturally go the path of least resistance. And that’s not always the safest path.
The Bottom Line
Shawn’s message is simple but powerful: stop playing whack-a-mole with safety issues and start building a real strategy around value creation. Your people aren’t coming to work trying to get hurt—they’re trying to get the job done. The question is: are you making it easier for them to do both?
Ready to challenge everything you think you know about safety culture? This episode will definitely make you think differently about your approach.
Want to continue the conversation? Email us at mmu@augury.com and let us know what you think or suggest other topics you’d like Ed and Alvaro to discuss!
