This is an excerpt from the article “4 Best Practices for Global Safety Implementations” originally published in the October 2015 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.

One large pharmaceutical company we work with uses an assessment tool to determine readiness. In addition to evaluating past experiences with leadership involvement and the site’s ability to maintain an ongoing process, this tool helped them to determine when a location was ready for the new initiative. This approach also allowed them to identify any gaps that might compromise the success of the initiative before they became an issue.

In other cases, corporate safety managers use a cultural assessment tool to determine which site is primed to implement. I’ve also seen clients identify sites that have made temporary safety gains in the past but the injury rate has slowly returned to higher levels.

Establishing which sites are most ready will help you safeguard the implementation and prepare the ground at future sites to give you the best chance at success.

Whatever criteria you use, the goal is to look at culture and find sites that already have a well-developed safety management system. See where on-site leadership is in the best position to support the new initiative and where implementation is likely to be the smoothest. Early victories will help sustain the initiative through any unexpected rough patches down the road.

Bottom Line: Partner with your vendor to create/use a readiness tool to help you prioritize sites.

Read the full version of the article here.