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Coaching Flagged Incidents

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Learn how to effectively coach flagged incidents, using Voxel's video-based safety tool to promote a culture of shared responsibility, timely responses, and positive reinforcement, thereby transforming the perception of safety from a punitive to a valued and shared goal.

When you see a risky behavior or near-miss incident in the video you need to act quickly while the memory is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Industrial environments are chaotic and a lot can happen in a single shift – if you wait too many days, your associates may forget what happened, and it will be harder to get them to change their behavior. Voxel’s Highlighted events gives you a short list of high-priority, “coachable” incidents you can take back to your team each day.

When communicating with your team about Voxel, always remind them that it is a tool for training and coaching. The last thing you want to do is fire somebody on your team; it’s hard to find reliable people to come into work. The goal of video-based safety is to train your team to perform their best and go home healthy each day. A useful analogy is a football team reviewing film after a game. Remind your team that pro athletes review game film everyday. It’s mandatory for preparation to review your mistakes and successes and find places to improve for the next game.

If you see an incident pop up in Voxel flagging dangerous behavior by one of your workers, it's best not to single out your employee (if you can avoid it). Instead, it’s better to address the whole team – even if one person made the mistake, keeping your work environment safe is a shared responsibility. Building strong safety norms is only possible if everybody in the workplace is on the same page. In a proactive safety culture, your team members will remind each other about best practices and hold each other accountable. 

Develop a safety routine to maximize positive rewards for good safety practices, and minimize punishments for bad safety behaviors. Spend more time encouraging good behavior than you do punishing bad behavior. When safety is mostly discussed in a punitive context, then your associates will only ever think about safety in a negative way. When your job and your livelihood is on the line every time the topic of safety comes up, you won’t want to talk about it!

Always make a note of the good things that are happening in your work environment. Whether you see good behaviors while walking around your worksite, or you observe positive behaviors that were picked up on video – keep track and give kudos. Give your workers feedback on a combination of in-person and video observations: Voxel is not a substitute for doing due diligence and observing your site with your own eyes.

Voxel records hundreds of events per day. Although it is designed to flag ‘bad’ behaviors, you will inevitably see positive behaviors on video each day. When coaching your team to address a negative behavior caught on video, make an effort to identify positive behavior caught on video during the same shift. This will help to socialize your team to understand that videos are not being used to punish, they’re being used to teach the difference between good and bad safety practices.

Remind your team members that they are valued. Take every opportunity to tell them their work is appreciated, and their health is your priority. For example, if you see your associate lifting with a poor ergonomic posture, tell them: “I’m worried about your lifting technique. I want to save your back—you’ve only got one!”

Major 🔑s to Success:

  • Act quickly for maximum impact: Voxel’s algorithm will Highlight high-priority events each day, so you can act on “coachable” incidents while the memory is still fresh.
  • Emphasize the goal: remind your team their priority is to get better each day, like a pro athlete reviewing film after a game. Video-based safety is about sending everybody home healthy at the end of the day.

  • Target the group: address your training sessions to the team instead of singling out a ‘bad actor.’ The key to a positive safety culture is a building sense of shared responsibility for safety. When everyone is on the same page, they’ll hold each other accountable.
  • Prioritize positive rewards: spend more time on rewarding good behavior than you do on punishing bad behavior. If your associates feel like they’re risking their job and their ability to put food on the table whenever they talk about ‘safety,’ they won’t talk about it at all!
  • Don’t neglect physical observations: video-based safety training is not a substitute for a real site-walk. Make sure you give workers feedback on a combination of in-person and video observations.
  • Look for good behavior on film: whenever you identify a ‘bad’ behavior on film, try to call out a ‘good’ behavior captured in an incident video. This will help your team develop a positive association with video-based safety, instead of a punitive one.
  • Tell your team they are valued: everybody deserves to know they are appreciated!