Safety Leadership Training

Not a psychological pep talk, but holding up a mirror

The "hard" safety features, such as an edge board on scaffolding and the appropriate labels, are now well established in the construction industry. Sometimes there is still room for improvement when it comes to acting safely. But how do you do that without having to act as a policeman all the time? Construction company Gebroeders Blokland called on Aboma, whose Safety Leadership training provides practical tools for improving the safety culture. A successful formula, as it turns out, because a follow-up training is already planned.

How do you ensure that employees have a high regard for safety awareness, that they contribute ideas and report unsafe situations? According to Mitran Boelee of Aboma Consultancy, that depends on how an employee is managed and where you as an organization or manager place your priorities. "The supervisor has an important task in motivating employees to work with safety. With our 3-day Safety Leadership training, we examine together how people are put together when it comes to safety, so that a picture emerges of why work is unsafe. Then we share practical tools to turn this around as a leader. On the last day, actors are flown in and we put the lessons learned into practice."

Martin Nederveen of Gebroeders Blokland is now an expert by experience in this field. "Our managers felt increasingly like police officers when calling employees to account for unsafe actions. And that often met with resistance on the shop floor. Reason enough to start talking to Aboma to get out of this vicious circle. And that has borne fruit. Our supervisors received very good 'tips and tricks' to stimulate safe working that actually have an effect on the construction site. A training course of which the script is geared to the target group in a playful manner. No psychological pep talks, just practical skills, not too difficult and construction-oriented. Because a mirror is held up to them, they learn a lot. And laughter, for that matter." 

"We find that working safely is now a little easier to bring up and is handled differently," says Nederveen. "Our people are also more open to it. Reason enough to organize the training again in the fall, partly with a different group, so that we can keep each other on our toes. Another nice 'side benefit' is that working safely often goes hand in hand with better quality."