Five common pitfalls for every Golden Rules programme

Golden Rules, Absolute Rules, and Life Savers are among the various titles given to company programmes designed to directly mitigate the major risks present in a workplace, particularly those that may result in fatalities or serious injuries. Despite their potential efficacy, discussions with organisations regarding the integration and effectiveness of their Golden Rules programmes have yielded mixed responses. Until recently, there has been a lack of enthusiasm for such initiatives. 

However, more recently it has become evident that there exists a significant opportunity to harness the power of these core rules. They represent an organisation's fundamental safeguards against the hazards most likely to endanger their workforce, thereby presenting an ideal platform to engage employees in the essential principles of daily safety protocols. Properly implemented, each rule has the potential to serve as a cornerstone for fostering constructive dialogue between management and staff regarding the safety measures that truly matter in day-to-day operations. 

Yet, there are common pitfalls that organisations must be wary of when developing and implementing Golden Rules programmes. Failure to address these pitfalls can result in these programmes becoming mere bureaucratic exercises, lacking relevance to the practical realities of the workplace.  

To avoid the latter here are five characteristics of an ailing Golden Rules programme: 

1. You didn’t engage the workforce properly: so rules are seen as centrally created and centrally issued. Even if they’re the right rules, lack of ownership from your workforce prevents success
2. The rules focus too much on discipline: they could have been positive, written in a way that emphasises local ownership, with involvement from individuals given the chance to understand what they were and how to use them. Instead the heavy use of stern language and discipline if you don’t follow them has switched people off, made the exercise very negative and widened the division between workforce and management
3. The rules are too complicated, with too many conditions to make them work: this is made worse when combined with too much focus on discipline, so people can’t remember the detail and feel afraid of what will happen if they get it wrong. Rules end up driven underground and ignored
4. You didn’t sell the rules: people often make a decision about how serious the message is on the basis of the medium. Making the rules work is a marketing exercise with the need for appropriate tools alongside proper workforce engagement. A nicely presented poster sent by email simply won’t cut it
5. It’s health and safety driven only: without visible endorsement from the senior team or other key operational management team members your workforce won’t grasp the critical importance of the rules

If your Golden Rules doesn’t deliver the results you expected, contact us.