By Alesandro Trani, AlertDriving Global Safety Writer
The first step to eliminating workplace hazards is recognizing them. For environmental health and safety (EHS) professionals, safety interventions are more straightforward in production facilities, where hazards can be managed in relative isolation. Unguarded machinery, vapors and fumes, dust, and frayed wiring are just some of the severe—and isolated—dangers companies can identify, mitigate and monitor directly with strict engineering controls.
But what if the road is an employee’s workplace?
In many countries, particularly emerging markets, EHS professionals have few, if any, reasonable safeguards to protect employees on the road. People who drive for business are up to 50% more likely to be killed on the job than construction or agriculture workers. Facing such dire odds, global fleets can’t wait for governments to “pave the way” for safety. How do managers contain—much less recognize—occupational risks at intersections, highways or anywhere else drivers conduct company business?
Making the “Global,” “Local”
Encouraging one driver to “get the message” is difficult enough. Global EHS professionals must motivate thousands of drivers in multiple languages.
Caught in the headwinds of local laws and customs, however, many global programs run aground before getting off the ground for one simple reason: fleets lack a culturally sensitive approach to coordinate their message. Rather than being hurdles to strategic planning, culture and language can be leveraged to apply global content in a local context. Onboarding users from other countries to a single-source learning ecosystem can seed new markets with consistent risk reporting, but only if companies possess the right tools.
1. They Link Employees from the Top-Down in a Safety Structure.
Global programs require consistent communication so every driver appreciates how much their safety means to a company. Coordinated communication, such as a message from senior-level executive, can drastically improve compliance if employees understand what is expected of them. Senior-level support may include marketing or other materials to incentivize participation from local fleet administrators, particularly if the new program is optional. In addition, programs should reinforce a common message throughout their duration, including updates about collision reductions or other key performance indicators, to drive compliance further.
2. They Train, Test and Track Individual Driver Performance Fleet-Wide
Frequently testing drivers on occupational or vehicle safety not only improves retention—it also unlocks volumes of data. Falling test scores can highlight new areas of risk before the trend translates to accidents. Since traffic laws and culture vary from market to market, testing provides much-needed standardization to assess compliance regardless of culture or language. To adapt to new risks, programs should include mid-year and annual “safety checks” measuring crash rates against training data. Where scores dip, remedial training can be assigned, ensuring the program only targets risk, rather than blanketing all drivers with unnecessary courses.
3. They Encourage Positive Behavioral Change
Even when drivers demonstrate improved skills, there is no absolute guarantee they will remember them in a year. According to the American Society for Training and Development, adults subjected to “cram sessions” lose 90% of what they learn after absorbing too much, too quickly. Hours spent studying have virtually no effect on retention—unlike repeated testing, which more than doubles retention levels among learners. In time, behavior-based training helps to “pattern” out mistakes by reinforcing core concepts through task repetition, or a process known as repeated retrieval. Testing drivers early, often and with shorter gaps between lessons forces them to call core concepts to mind not just once, but multiple times.
4. They Leverage Cultural Diversity to Implement Standardized Data Reporting
Programs gain credibility and impact if they appeal to drivers in their own language or with visuals that resonate.
5. Their Flexibility and Broad Scope Can Help Structure Drivers Under a Single Policy
Fewer than 1 in 4 reimbursement drivers are ever adequately assessed for high-risk behavior, even though fleets use them three times more often than drivers using company assets. The reason is that many businesses lack tools to assess the “grey” elements of their fleet, so these drivers face fewer controls for vehicle safety compared to hire or lease drivers. With real, penetrative reporting supported by fully translated global content, driver risk management programs can hold drivers to a single occupational health and safety policy.
About AlertDriving:
Established in 1998, AlertDriving, a Toronto-based software company specializing in driver risk management, works with multinationals as diverse and far-ranging as Coca-Cola Hellenic, Philip Morris International, Novartis, W.R Grace, and more.
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