Proactive interventions

“We work safely because we are motivated to do the right things naturally, not just because we are told to. We want to make interventions and actively participate in improvement activities”

This element is the very essence of bringing HSE-MS to life, but also the hardest to achieve. This requires regular personal interventions to influence the behaviour of others and accept
interventions by others.

Proactive interventions are formal and informal activities (workshops, training, appraisals, etc.) required to implement and sustain change.

Companies will generally have some formal activities in place. For example, appraisal systems should reflect the aspired goals of the organisation (e.g. zero harm), rewarding those who deliver, but also providing the appropriate mechanisms for when coaching is needed.

This element is primarily what the Hearts and Minds tools help to achieve: through regular usage, they help people to have engaging and meaningful discussions about HSE issues, and encourage them to think about HSE issues in their everyday work. The aim is to create intrinsic motivation for safety - i.e. people do the right thing because they want to, not because they are told to.

The Hearts and Minds toolkit can be used to form the basis for training, workshops, and other professional development activities. It provides a process and a set of tools to support most general HSE improvement programs as well as helping to solve specific problems commonly observed in organisations.

Each tool essentially provides a method to help people discuss and identify issues, and then find their own solutions. They are designed on a ‘by you, for you’ basis, without the need for consultants. Leaders at all levels can use these tools, and can act as facilitators for those they manage.