Personal Accountability
Summary
In Risk Dimensions we understand that it is reasonable to hold employees (at all levels and locations) accountable for their acts, omissions, decisions, behaviours, and communications. With the assistance of our clients we have developed accountability procedures, models, guidelines and case studies, which we have applied to safety incidents and near misses.
Detailed Offering
Hardly a day goes by without hearing someone on the news, or in the office, or even in general conversation wanting to know ‘who is accountable for this?’ Almost certainly it is because something has gone wrong, a scapegoat is seemingly needed, and somebody has to take the blame. It is strange that we don’t often hear the ‘who’s accountable for this’ question when things go well and we succeed. In today’s workplace, we all need to know who actually is accountable for ensuring that we succeed, and fundamentally understand what it means to be personally accountable.
In Risk Dimensions we understand that it is reasonable to hold employees, at all levels and locations, in any organisation accountable for their acts, omissions, decisions, behaviours, and communications. With the assistance of our clients we have developed accountability procedures, models, guidelines and case studies, which we have applied to safety incidents and near misses. The objective is not to apportion blame: quite the opposite in fact. The objective is to support a fair and equitable safety culture by ensuring that the individuals understand and willingly accept accountability for the way they conduct themselves in the workplace. Critically the whole concept of recognising personal accountability is equally relevant when things go well and the job is done safely, on time, on budget, and to identified quality standards.
You might think that surely organisations can easily determine where accountability lies by reviewing organograms, procedures, job descriptions and HR documentation? Our experience tells us differently. Organisations struggle with root cause analysis when things go wrong, particularly around the human factors aspects. Too often easy corrective options based on immediate or underlying causes are applied, because the real root causes are too difficult to detect or address. This leads to inadequate responses, misplaced resources, lost opportunity and repeated failures. The safety, efficiency, quality and cost aspects can be enormous. Even when accountability is defined it can even be applied to the wrong individuals, who are often basically ‘set up to fail.’ Add industrial unrest, poor morale, high attrition rates and cultural problems to the mix, and the organisation’s balance sheet will quickly reflect the true story, and then the accountability questions will come thick and fast.
An accountability review is not an incident investigation; it may support one, or it may be a completely independent review. An accountability review examines the human factors and determines where personal accountability lies in both positive and negative situations. We believe that the concept is transferable across different business areas (i.e. finance, planning, business development, HR, IT, etc.) and is relevant to all industries wherever they are located.