The "White Hats" Are Back! What Is It This Time?

Safety Walk-Throughs Through the Eyes of a Worker

Just a regular workday. I show up for my shift, get my assignment, and head to work. Somewhere a tool is awkward to use, somewhere a piece of equipment is acting up, and somewhere a hazard has been ignored for years. We've talked about it, written about it, and asked for fixes more than once. What's the point? Everything stays the same. So you just have to adapt. After all, the work won't do itself.

And then the plant director or the first deputy walks up to me and asks: "So, what are the issues? What's keeping you from working normally and safely?"

You'd think, this is the moment! Spill everything that's been building up. But very different thoughts run through my head: "Why are they suddenly interested? Is this some kind of inspection? If I speak up now, will I end up being the scapegoat? Or will my supervisor take the heat? And why say anything at all if nothing is going to change anyway?" So it's easier to answer: "Everything's fine, just doing our job." It's not that I don't have problems. I'm just used to the fact that talking about them is often pointless, and sometimes it only backfires on you.

After all, I don't come to work to discuss flaws. I have my shift assignment, my targets, and the equipment I'm responsible for. I need to get my job done and go home in one piece. And the fact that some conditions are far from ideal is something I know perfectly well without the director telling me. I work with this equipment every single day. I know where you have to put in extra effort, where a tool doesn't fit, where an operation is awkward to perform, and where you have to be extra careful. I've gotten so used to some things that I don't even see them as problems anymore. I've simply learned to work around them.

So when someone asks me what needs to be changed, I don't even immediately know where to start. Talk about everything? We've already discussed half of the issues at daily briefings. Both my supervisor and the section head know about the other half. Why repeat myself? And most importantly, I still need to figure out if they genuinely want to hear my answer.

If an executive shows up with an entire entourage, with my supervisor standing right there and other managers gathered around, I'm hardly going to open up. After all, I have to come back for my shift tomorrow and keep working with these exact same people. It's a completely different story when the director or deputy approaches me without my immediate bosses around and calmly asks how things are going. They don't rush me, don't interrupt, and don't immediately try to explain why I'm wrong. They just ask questions and try to understand the situation.

At Nornickel, such meetings are called leadership safety walk-throughs. This is one of the tools within the "Safety Leadership" project. For me as a worker, it's not the name that matters, but the fact that the manager came not to inspect me, but to understand the conditions I work in. Yet even then, I'm unlikely to lay out everything that's piled up right away. It's just too unusual! Let me bring up a minor issue first and see how they react. Will they start looking for someone to blame? Will they say I should have fixed it myself? Will my feedback just turn into another task assigned back to me?

And if the manager shows interest, writes down the issue, and promises to look into it, that's good, of course. But nothing has changed for me yet. I've heard similar promises before. What matters to me is not how attentively they listened, but what happens after the conversation. Say I mention that a tool is unergonomic or that a machine is long overdue for repair. The issue is logged into the register, a responsible person is assigned, and deadlines are set. Great. Now let's see what happens next. If the issue gets resolved—excellent. If not, they should at least explain why and when to expect results. I don't need everything fixed by tomorrow. I understand that sometimes it's complicated. The main thing is that it isn't forgotten and I don't have to remind them ten times. And when I see that something has actually been fixed, my attitude changes. It means speaking up wasn't in vain. Maybe it's worth mentioning another problem too?

Of course, if nothing has changed for years, a single conversation won't convince me that things will be different now. I'll watch how issues are resolved, listen to what my colleagues say, and see whether anyone got in trouble for being outspoken. After all, I still have to work with these people. And when I see that problems are genuinely being solved and nobody gets punished for raising concerns, I start speaking more freely myself. You no longer need to wait for the director to come by and ask. You can point out what's wrong on your own, and sometimes even suggest how to fix it. At the end of the day, I work here every day, and I know certain things better than those who only see the shop floor during walk-throughs.

By and large, I don't need special attention from management. I need reliable equipment, working tools, clear requirements, and the ability to do my job calmly without unnecessary risk. If getting that means telling the director what isn't working—why not? As long as it actually makes a difference. Because to me, it doesn't really matter how many walk-throughs a manager conducts or how many items they log into a register. What matters to me is whether it has become safer to work afterward. If it has, then next time someone asks, "What problems are you having?", I might not give the usual "Everything's fine" reply.