To Punish or to Pardon: Line Walkdowns Put the Comma in the Right Place

Evolution of Line Walkdowns: From Hunting Violators to Risk Management

A traditional line walkdown is often perceived by personnel as a punitive measure: a manager comes to find violations and punish the guilty. However, this approach forces workers to hide problems rather than solve them. During the webinar, Anton Dolgikh uses the experience of Metalloinvest to explain how to transform this process by integrating proactive tools: "risk hunting," rewarding safe work, and developmental conversations with violators.

A line walkdown is part of a unified standard for a manager's work, which also includes specialized committees and safety dialogues. Preparation for a walkdown requires preliminary analysis: before going to the site, the group studies already recorded hazards and the status of corrective actions. Only after checking their own PPE do managers go on the route, demonstrating commitment to the rules by personal example.

Cross-Functional "Risk Hunting" and Combating "Blurred Vision"

One of the main problems during regular inspections of one's own territory is the loss of hazard perception — obvious threats are no longer noticed. To solve this problem, the speaker demonstrates the mechanics of cross-walkdowns, where a working group from one shop goes to the territory of another department.

This exchange of experience helps identify hidden hazards that were previously considered a technological norm. For example, the lack of safe access to equipment for sensor maintenance or formal pit fencing unable to stop a fall. The main goal of this stage is not to find the guilty, but to help production create a safe environment.

Abandoning the Coupon System: Dialogue and Reward Instead of Fines

The presentation details the transition from financial punishment to corrective conversations. Practice shows that depriving a bonus does not prevent a repeated violation, but only teaches the worker to hide better. Instead, an algorithm for a conversation built on open questions is proposed: "What can your actions lead to?", "How can you do this work safely?".

By answering these questions, the employee independently forms a picture of possible consequences and an algorithm of correct actions in their head. This triggers the mechanism of self-control and dynamic risk assessment (DRA) directly at the workplace.

Special attention is paid to rewarding safe work. Shifting the focus from punishment to recognizing achievements helps consolidate correct behavioral patterns. Managers note not only production indicators but also the correct use of PPE, reporting potential hazards, or proposed ideas for risk reduction. This sets a positive example for the rest of the team.

Risk Lifecycle Management

Identifying a problem is only the first step. All information collected during walkdowns must be transformed into specific management decisions. Risks are categorized by colors (from green to red, potentially fatal), and a specific lifecycle is established for each. If a problem cannot be eliminated immediately, compensating measures are implemented, reducing the threat level to an acceptable one for the period of developing capital solutions.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to organize a schedule of cross-walkdowns at an enterprise with multiple locations?
• Why does the classic system of fines discredit proactive safety tools?
• What questions should be asked to a violator to change their behavioral attitudes?
• What exactly should workers be praised for during a line walkdown?
• How to build information routing from risk identification to the managing director's committee?