Safety Leadership as Part of the Overall Production Culture

Safety and Efficiency: Finding the Balance

The question of balance between production efficiency and occupational safety is one of the most pressing in modern industry. Vyacheslav Kozlov, Director of the Nuclear, Radiation, Industrial Safety and Environment Department at TVEL, offers a pragmatic view on this issue. In his speech, he emphasizes that the slogan "human life is priceless" often does not work in practice. Efficiency operates with specific indicators — money and deadlines. For safety to compete with efficiency, it must also be evaluated through clear metrics: costs of training new employees, fund payouts, reputational and criminal risks.

Reputation as a Key Safety Factor

The speaker analyzes the importance of reputational risks using the nuclear industry as an example. Positioning the company as safe — from building power plants to waste management — makes any accident a serious blow to its reputation. If a company cannot ensure the safety of its employees, doubts arise about its ability to guarantee the safety of the production itself and compliance with technologies. This approach is relevant not only for nuclear energy but also for new business areas, such as the production of lithium-ion storage systems, where safety culture must also become an integral part of work processes.

Developing Safety Leadership

The presentation details the process of transforming the role of managers. Initially, a gap was identified: workers did not see managers as safety leaders, although the managers themselves thought otherwise. To solve this problem, the company implemented a systematic approach:

• Documentary support: Forming a policy and strategy for developing a safety culture, establishing management responsibility.
• Leadership safety visits: Transitioning from behavioral audits (observation and correction) to visits aimed at reducing the distance between management and workers, creating an open dialogue.
• Integration with quality: Including quality issues in leadership visits, as technological violations lead to both injuries and defective products.

Employee Involvement and Working with the Regulator

Using the safety leaders movement as an example, the speaker shows how a bottom-up initiative helps shape the culture. Employees themselves propose and implement projects to improve workplace safety, receiving management support. Another important aspect is interaction with supervisory authorities. Instead of hiding incidents, the company builds an open dialogue with the regulator, using its experience to prevent violations and jointly solve problems.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to justify safety costs to management using the language of business?
• Why reputational risks can be more important than direct financial losses in accidents?
• How to transform behavioral audits into effective leadership safety visits?
• How to involve line managers and ordinary employees in proactive safety work?
• How to build constructive interaction with supervisory authorities, avoiding the concealment of incidents?