This viewpoint is a guest post created by Thomas Olitsky. Olitsky is Vice President of Safety at Performance Food Group, a Fortune 100 broadline food distributor headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. A 40-year industry veteran, Olitsky is responsible for safety across PFG’s operations.

No matter how big your organization is, safety should always be a top priority. For larger companies, however—especially those that have grown both organically and through acquisition—building a strong, consistent safety culture usually comes with a few more hurdles.

That's the situation at Performance Food Group (PFG), where I serve as Vice President of Safety. We have over 30,000 associates working in more than 150 locations nationwide. We've also completed eight acquisitions, our most recent one closing in 2023. Those numbers represent a lot of people we're responsible for keeping safe and sending home to their families at the end of the day.

At PFG, all of our safety efforts start with three core pillars that form the foundation of our safety culture: associate buy-in, clear goals, and planning and execution. While every organization is unique, these concepts can serve as the basis for any company that is looking to build a safety program that not only drives performance, but also makes safety part of your organization’s DNA. Here’s a deeper dive into each pillar.

Pillar #1: Associate Buy-in for Safety Initiatives 

Empower your teams, don't just talk at them.

The days of simply telling employees what to do are long gone. Of course you can try, but your time and effort will be far better spent by working to build trust with your teams at every level. This is especially true for newer generations of workers. They want to feel empowered—not talked at—and building a sense of empowerment around safety is good for everyone, regardless of age or tenure. 

But how does empowerment actually work? For PFG, transparency around safety is critical. For example, we explain why certain policies are in place, or why changes are being made. And, a critical part of being transparent is constant communication about safety. You can't send one message and expect people to be on board. You must communicate often, in multiple ways and from multiple people, to be most effective. The "why" behind safety is just as important as the "what."

Pillar #2: Clear Safety Goals 

Numbers are important, but make people’s safety the main objective.

It may seem obvious that goals are important to building a safety program, but goal setting, especially for safety, can be deceptively hard. Goals need to be clear and actionable; people need to know what they are, understand how they can impact them, and see actual results.

At PFG, we set goals around certain KPIs, such as lowering DOT recordable accidents and reducing accidents per million miles driven. We also make it a point to share safety performance data across the organization. We don't do it to name and shame, we do it to help support our colleagues and work with them to be, as our motto puts it, "Safer Together."

It's also important to remember this: Cost reduction should never be a safety goal in and of itself. Yes, costs will go down as a side effect of better safety performance. But the main goal of any safety program should be measured in human terms: Keeping your employees, and the communities they serve, safe so they can go home to their loved ones.

Pillar #3: Thoughtful Planning and Execution

Find the courage to lead, and follow through on your commitments.

The "what" and "why" of safety performance are important, but so is the "how." It can be demoralizing for a team, especially for one that's fully bought in, to have ambitious safety goals but no clear way to achieve them, and no support for putting them into action. 

This is why it's particularly important for leaders at an organization to buy into safety culture. It's easy to pay lip service to being safer, but your leaders need to demonstrate their commitment to safety performance by talking about it often, recognizing and celebrating when milestones are achieved, and taking responsibility if a target is missed. 

Executives also need to know when to take a step back and let their employees fly. One of the most satisfying experiences I've had is seeing managers learn about safety from each other and share their knowledge with their colleagues. When safety is being talked about at every level, and people are sharing and learning from each other, you’ll know that a solid culture of safety has taken root.

AI is something else safety leaders need to keep in mind. As AI tools become more widespread, the technology will create opportunities to be more proactive. Organizations won't be confined to being reactive to safety issues, but will have data and insights to address potential problems before they happen. Leaders will need to adjust their approach to planning—it won’t just happen after the fact. AI has the potential to deliver huge benefits.

There’s never a dull moment in safety, and there will always be new obstacles to tackle. However, with these pillars in place, you can be confident that your organization will be ready to meet them head on.