Santa’s SMS is 95% Safe

Santa’s SMS is 95% Safe

NOTE: This post is from one of our frequent contributors to this blog, "Birdseye59604.

Another year since last deliveries and Santa is running in circles to get the job done for gift deliveries this year. The year has been extremely busy and Santa had to hire more helpers than ever before. The reindeer are getting prepared, the sleigh updated with latest navigational gadgets and Santa’s suit is getting improved for chimney-dynamics, sot control and installed with high-tech thermostats.

A few weeks ago Santa reviewed reports from last year’s trip. There were several reports filed, both anonymous and other by Rudolph and Randolph. There were incidents running into an elephant in Nepal, near miss with Himalayan Sasquatch at an undisclosed location, dropping a gift in the wrong kangaroo pocket in Perth, overrunning penguins on Queen Maud’s land, injuring a llama in Peru, getting severely stuck in a chimney in Muskogee and being slammed by a hockey puck on Ellesmere Island. In addition, Santa had several hazard reports from landings, take-offs, approaches and rooftop slide-offs. These incident reports were labelled by SMS Manager Ms. Claus either for further investigation, with Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), or to be entered directly into a hazard register without investigation.

Investigations and CAPs were carried out by Ms. Claus, who had received formal investigation and CAP training from an online provider. This training included regulatory requirements, data collection of facts, analyses of events, interview techniques, process identifications, prioritizing of categories, identify contributing and root causes, propose corrective action plans, execute the corrective action plan, follow-up of results and how to complete an effective report for Santa’s Helpers, Functional Area Managers, Santa Himself, to Accountable Executive Grandma Santa and to the Board of Directors with Rudolph and Randolph as CEOs . Corrective actions from last year’s incidents took on the shape of Santa’s current objective and goals to improve processes for known technology. 

So, Ms. Santa completed all her investigations with CAPs and entered both investigated reports and the not-required investigation reports into the hazard register and prioritized areas for process improvements.

In Santa’s Safety Management System Policy, it states that Quality Assurance of all systems must be conducted prior to next gift deliveries. The Quality Assurance manager is Great-Grandma Santa, who, with binoculars and magnifying glass, collected data of the regulatory requirements, operational requirements, safety management system and of last year’s quality assurance reports. Regulatory requirements and operational processes were documented. The safety management system tracked operations to review processes for regulatory compliance and for safety operations to be within acceptable limits. This year’s quality assurance audit concluded that Santa had systems in place to continue with gift deliveries, and that the quality assurance audit from last year had included all aspect of operations and the quality assurance program was validated.

With all the regulatory and safety checks done, Santa is ready to head on yet another adventure. Santa is ready to deliver gifts to all in the North, South, East and West with a confidence level of 95% that all safety systems are within the mean of operational standards.

BirdsEye59604

Enforcing Accountability

Enforcing Accountability

NOTE: This post is from one of our frequent contributors to this blog, "Birdseye59604.

As the Accountable Executive I am committed to enforce accountability compliance to ensure that everyone is accountable to safety. Your roles and responsibilities are described in the handbook, which was handed out at the beginning of the year. The handbook explicitly states conditions under which lack of accountability is enforceable, e.g. illegal activity, negligence or willful misconduct. In addition, all of you employees signed that you had read and understood everything in the handbook. I will enforce lack of accountability under the authorities of illegal activity, negligence or willful misconduct.

Wouldn't it be great if accountability to safety only would be ensured by the hard hand of enforcement? One would assume that life is good, that there are no hazards, incidents or accidents and everyone show up accountable and happy at work or in school in organizations with these types of leadership.

There are organizations that operate this way and these organizations are frequently enforcing accountability by firing employees. So, how many employees must be fired to ensure 100% accountability? Some organizations firmly believe in policies where accountability is only achieved by enforcement. Schools are enforcing lack of accountability with detention for not completing homework, or enforcing low grades to students when a principle assigns unsuitable study materials.

Safety and accountability is teamwork. Some say that there are no “I” in team, but there is. It’s just that it’s hidden in the “a”.

Accountability exists in a Just Culture, where the first step of accountability is taken by Accountable Executive and then continuing with Accountable Managers and Accountable Employees mirroring management behavior.

Accountability to safety is a tool for imperfect organizations with an unconditional commitment to accountable safety processes. The moment an enterprise demands virtual perfectionism is the day when human factors are discarded and accountability becomes lost.

BirdsEye59604