Two Consultants on Leadership: Critical Behaviors in a Job Brief

Onsite job briefs are a valuable last-step planning tool for getting jobs done safely.  Even with the best designed plans, things often change on the worksite. Onsite job briefs give workers the opportunity to see what they will be working on and compare the job-as-designed with how the job can be completed safely.  It gives workers the ability to see and discuss hazards and controls, discuss concerns and unexpected barriers, adapt the plan to get work done safely, or stop the job. While organizations understand the importance of job briefs, many have taken the wrong approach when it comes to ensuring they are done well. Many organizations have over-proceduralized (which includes over-paper-worked) the job brief in an attempt to ensure quality. Unfortunately, this overfocus on paperwork has created the opposite effect, with many job briefs being pencil whipped to meet an administrative burden. The quality of a job brief should be determined by the interactions in the meeting itself, and not the finished paperwork.  Ashley and I are going to explore some critical behaviors needed in a job brief to improve the quality of the interactions within those meetings. Ashley will identify some behaviors and skills needed from the person facilitating the meeting, and I will discuss some critical leadership behaviors needed by the supervisors and safety professionals to help build and develop those skills. 

Ashley Duhon, Senior Consultant

The person facilitating an onsite job brief has a tremendous responsibility to help prepare all team members to perform the work safely. Listed below are a few practical and effective behaviors that facilitators can demonstrate to enhance the engagement of their job briefs:

Assign review responsibilities, ask for input from new team members, ask what has been missed or for lessons learned in similar situations from veteran workers. Whether with new or veteran employees, asking for their input prompts them to reflect on their previous completion of job tasks, hazards they have encountered performing similar tasks, and how they completed the work safely. These rich discussions provide the context for safe work and for learning from each other. 

Confirm start work authority. Promote personal positive accountability for working safely by ending a job brief by having everyone say aloud, “the go is a go.” Each team member is responsible for understanding the content of the job brief and engaging in the critical behaviors discussed. Having them assert their readiness to perform the job safely establishes clear responsibility for follow-through at the job site. 

Share a compelling message of safety and professionalism—over production—at the end of the job brief.  Facilitators can be tempted to end meetings with a message that production, speed, and efficiency are priorities for the day. Production pressure is a very real trap that many fall in due to ever-evolving business environments and competing organizational priorities. By making production the main priority, safety is inadvertently de-prioritized. Sharing a message of safety at the end of the meeting reinforces safety as the top priority. 

Provide positive and constructive feedback during work based on the job brief. Providing positive feedback on critical safe behaviors will encourage and strengthen those behaviors—what is reinforced or recognized, is repeated. Additionally, providing constructive feedback on critical safe behaviors will help discourage unsafe behaviors while simultaneously prompting the desired behavior. Facilitators who can effectively provide positive and constructive feedback harness powerful tools to create a safe work environment. 

The person facilitating an on-site job brief has a tremendous responsibility to ensure the safety of all members of the team. The ability to engage all team members in a productive, safety-focused job brief is a skill that facilitators should strive to build in their repertoire. Incorporating these practical and effective behaviors will increase safety on the job site, and in turn, improve overall safety-related outcomes.

Bryan Shelton, M.S., Senior Consultant

Skill development requires practice and coaching. While organizations may have a robust training program for how work is done, many fail to see that different skillsets are required to do the work and to run an engaging meeting about how to do the work as safe as possible.  To help build quality and engagement in job briefs, supervisors and safety professionals should build these activities into their daily/weekly leadership standard work.

Observe job briefs. While this sounds like a no-brainer, it’s rarely done at the frequency needed to be effective.  When you ask senior leaders for the most important role of a supervisor, they often say “coaching in the field.” However, when you look at a supervisor’s calendar, it suggests that administrative duties and meetings are number one. This creates a barrier that puts being in the field as a low priority. If that’s the case in your organization, it should be addressed.  Being in the field will allow supervisors and safety professionals to observe job briefs and how well the facilitator creates engagement, clarifies important tasks and hazards, and creates commitment to safe production through discussions and problem solving.  This observation is not an audit of paperwork but a look at the quality of the job brief interaction.  The goal is to identify the behaviors or skills that are leading to or retracting from an engaging job brief.  Consider using the behaviors listed above as a starting point for anchoring coaching.

Provide feedback and positive reinforcement. One goal of observing job briefs is to identify strengths and opportunities and provide helpful feedback. Providing coaching after the job brief gives leaders an opportunity to improve performance.  How these conversations happen is where art meets science as leaders will have to determine the focus (i.e., all positive feedback, mix of positive and constructive, or even just a focus on improvement areas) of the feedback based on the recipient. Here are some general recommendations:

• Keep the conversation short (e.g.,  less than 5 minutes) and focus only on facilitation of the job brief.
• Most of the feedback, and complete conversations, should be focused on what the person did well. Highlight specific things they did, questions asked, points they made, ways they created participation, how they addressed concerns, etc.
• Point out why the items listed above matter: what was the benefit to them or the group during the conversation.
• Deliver positive reinforcement. Even a statement as simple as, “that was an excellent way to build participation” will make it more likely those behaviors repeat.
• When giving constructive feedback, point out an area for improvement and use questions to allow the recipient to come up with their own solutions first.  For example, “I noticed that the newer members on your team did not provide their input during the discussion around hazards.  What would be one way you could purposefully get them to participate more?”

Look for and address knowledge gaps. There are times in which training, or specific skill building, will be the best investment for your time.  This is needed when the person lacks the skills or is missing fundamental knowledge that is preventing the job brief from occurring with high quality.  Examples include missing knowledge about the task to be completed or the hazards associated with the job, lacking the ability to develop and use an agenda, lacking public speaking skills, being unable to take an agenda and make it into an engaging discussion, etc.  In these cases, specific training or modeling is needed to address the lack of knowledge so that follow-up coaching will be more effective.  Remember, there is a difference between doing the job and running an engaging meeting about the job.

Final Thoughts

Job briefs are a wildly important task for creating safe production.  A key factor in the success of those meetings, and how work is completed afterwards, is directly related to how those meetings are run.  The quality of the job brief is a critical leading indicator to overall success.  As Ashley mentioned, building the facilitators’ skills in asking questions to ensure understanding about hazards, the work, and for lessons learned will help create two-way communication and engagement in the brief.  Supervisors and safety professionals are the coaching and support mechanism for developing the skills needed to lead a job brief with high quality. Organizations should ensure they have time and ability to coach successfully.  The return on investment is worth it.

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