Panel Discussion: Leadership and Safety Culture

Context: Staff Turnover and Safety Culture

In today's labor market, staff turnover is becoming one of the key challenges for developing a safety culture. When team composition is constantly changing, instilling shared values and standards becomes critically difficult. In this panel discussion, industry experts share practical experience on how to build a system for hiring, onboarding, and engaging personnel so that safety culture does not depend on employee turnover.

Conscious Hiring and Specialist Retention

Igor Nazarov, HSE Director at Russian Standard Vodka, analyzes the problem of staff turnover using his own department as an example. Initially facing a turnover rate of 50-60%, the team implemented a strict hiring filter. The key decision: a candidate is hired only with the unanimous approval of three executives (Functional Director, CEO, and HR Director). This reduced turnover to 10%. Furthermore, to retain employees in conditions of limited vertical growth, a system of internal roles was introduced (e.g., internal trainer or senior auditor), which stimulates professional development.

Engagement Tools: From Formalism to Awareness

Ivan Drepin, Deputy Managing Director for HSE at Kopstroy, emphasizes that the problem is not the turnover itself, but the environment new employees enter. The speaker shows, using the example of implementing emotionally charged toolbox talks, how attitudes toward safety can be changed. Daily short meetings, starting with the phrase «Every day we start our day with safety» and ending with a collective promise to work safely, operate on the principle of positive propaganda. This forms a subconscious habit and increases awareness, which is confirmed by an increase in the Bradley curve score from 0.69 to 2.03 in a year.

The Role of the Line Manager as a Culture Transmitter

Vyacheslav Kozlov, Director of the Nuclear, Radiation, Industrial Safety and Environment Department at TVEL, focuses on the role of line managers. They are the connecting link between top management and the workforce. The presentation details the issue of forming a leadership position among foremen. Leadership cannot be fragmented: a manager must be a leader in everything, caring for people and transmitting safety values to production sites.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to reduce staff turnover in the HSE department using a conscious hiring system?
• What tools help retain specialists when there are no prospects for vertical growth?
• How to use emotional intelligence and toolbox talks to form a conscious attitude towards safety?
• Why is it important to separate regulatory requirements from real safety tools?
• How to develop leadership qualities in line managers to effectively transmit safety culture?