The work between policy and practice
Road safety progress depends on more than commitments. It requires sustained action, strong partnerships, and accountability to ensure that policies…
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Written by Hannah Gregory of DRIVELife
A water tight policy is nothing without day-to-day adherence. Ensuring this adherence can become a real burden; a cycle of enforcement and consequence. This can result in a negative experience for everyone involved, but it doesn’t have to be like that.
Like building a house, you’ve got to do the ground work first, a solid foundation avoids problems later. The foundation for compliance to policy is culture. This is not rocket science, it is super easy to do, but you must mean it. Just going through the motions could do more damage than good.
The first step to preparing the culture is to understand what prompted the project in the first place. Has there been a serious incident, have costs got out of control, has the operation been negatively impacted by damaged vehicles being off the road? There will always be a reason, it may be as simple as a desire to be compliant.
Once you know why the business wants to make improvements, you need to understand the reality of driving for work at your company. Ask your people what needs to change and why. Ask as many people as you can and make sure you touch all levels; Leadership, Managers and Workforce. Simply investigate the following:
- What are their daily pressures or annoyances?
- What risks do they knowingly take to achieve their work goals?
- What is their perception of Leadership / Management / Workforce attitudes towards driving for work at your company?
- What would they change?
So long as you have listened well, and cared about the responses you have received, you will now have the landscape of the current driving culture mapped out. You will also have started to build trust with the people and gained a really good idea about what is important to them. This gives you the tools to lay the foundations on which to build.
Now, you are in a position to set about developing new ways of working. Keeping key personnel in each of the Leadership, Management and Workforce levels involved will not only ensure policies are fit for real world application, but also maintain trust throughout the change process.
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