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Why Safety Culture Is Built Through Attention
In safety, systems most often break down when attention fades, and people stop noticing early warning signs. Over time, familiarity dulls awareness, shortcuts feel harmless, and risks become part of the background. Most incidents are not caused by missing rules, but by drifts. These are small deviations that quietly become normal.
Michelle Griffin understands this better than most. With nearly two decades of experience across oil and gas, nuclear, manufacturing, consulting, and government projects, her approach to safety leadership is grounded in how people actually behave at work, not how policies assume they should behave.
Currently leading safety initiatives at Stevenson’s, Michelle brings a perspective shaped by auditing hundreds of organizations, many of which looked strong on paper. She has seen firsthand how high expectations, limited resources, and operational pressure collide, and how improvement only sticks when safety systems are practical enough to survive real-world conditions.
“Safety doesn’t change overnight,” she explains. “It changes when people start paying attention in the moments that matter.”
Those moments are rarely dramatic. They happen during routine tasks, familiar environments, and everyday decisions where attention is either present, or it isn’t.
A Career Shaped by Systems and Real-World Complexity
Michelle’s career in safety began through environmental science. Her academic foundation was built in environmental management, but as organizations began merging safety and environment functions to improve efficiency and align management systems, she found herself drawn into safety by design rather than intention.
That path shaped how she views the role. Safety, in her experience, is never standalone. It is influenced by how work is planned, how leaders prioritize competing demands, and how clearly expectations are communicated to the people doing the job.
Over the years, Michelle has gained experience in many industries, including managing the Environment, Health, and Safety for the Pan Am Games. She has also audited hundreds of companies, giving her a rare longitudinal view of how safety programs evolve, plateau, or regress.
That wide scope has allowed her to see patterns. The same gaps surface repeatedly across different industries, often hidden behind strong branding, mature documentation, or historically good performance.
Many safety professionals spend their entire careers inside one organization. Michelle has watched the same challenges reappear across many organizations, regardless of the sector.
Making Hazards Visible Before They Become Incidents
One of Michelle’s most effective tools is a deceptively simple exercise called “Spot the Hazard.”
Using real photos taken during audits and site visits, participants are given five seconds to identify hazards before moving to the next image. The outcome is consistently eye-opening. Even experienced managers and supervisors miss the hazards they pass every day.
This exercise highlights a critical reality in safety: hazard recognition is not automatic. It is a learned skill that improves with practice and deteriorates without it.
“Two people can walk into the same space and see completely different hazards,” Michelle says. “That’s why awareness matters so much.”
The five-second time limit is deliberate. On a worksite, people rarely have the luxury of time. Decisions are made quickly, often under pressure, distraction, or fatigue. Training people to recognize risk in those conditions is far more effective than teaching policy in isolation.
Over time, this type of visual, time-constrained training changes behavior. People begin scanning their environment differently. They pause where they used to rush. They speak up sooner.
The Real Purpose of Hazard Reporting
Michelle takes a pragmatic view of hazard reporting, particularly in environments where participation feels forced, inconsistent, or performative.
For her, the value of hazard reporting is not the form itself. It is the habit it creates.
“Hazard reporting is really about awareness,” she explains. “The more hazards we talk about, the more people start to see them.”
Even reports that feel minor or repetitive serve a purpose. They reinforce the expectation that hazards are worth noticing and discussing. Over time, repeated reporting builds shared language around risk and increases situational awareness across teams.
Silence, on the other hand, is rarely a sign that everything is safe. More often, it indicates disengagement or normalization of risk. When hazards stop being reported, people usually stop looking.
Transparency That Builds Accountability
At Stevenson’s, Michelle introduced monthly safety scorecards shared with managers and the executive team. These scorecards track expectations such as hazard submissions, completion of weekly safety meetings, and other leading indicators tied to day-to-day behavior.
Visibility is intentional.
“They know exactly where they stand,” she says.
When performance is visible across locations and leadership levels, accountability increases naturally. No one wants to be an outlier. Transparency removes the need for constant enforcement and shifts responsibility back to teams.
Michelle also moved safety meetings from a monthly basis to a weekly one. The change was designed to keep safety discussions current and relevant, rather than retrospective. Safety became part of routine operations, not something revisited only after incidents.
The targets themselves are intentionally realistic. Four hazard submissions per employee per year are achievable, sustainable, and sufficient to keep safety present without overwhelming the system.
Why Perfect Audit Scores Are a Red Flag
When Michelle joined Stevenson’s, audit scores consistently landed between 95 and 100 percent. On paper, the system appeared strong and mature.
In practice, it wasn’t telling the full story.
“If we’re scoring perfectly but incidents are still happening, then something isn’t being measured,” she explains.
Michelle rebuilt the audit process into a far more comprehensive system, expanding it to roughly 180 to 200 line items, depending on site applicability. The new audits examined not only compliance, but consistency, follow-through, and alignment with internal standards.
Scores dropped, but their insight improved.
“You’ll never score 100,” she says. “A good auditor always finds something.”
Safety environments are not static. Conditions change. People forget steps. Systems drift. Audits should expose gaps early, before they contribute to incidents. Their purpose is improvement, not reassurance.
What Defines an Effective Safety Leader
Michelle believes strong safety leadership requires adaptability. No single approach works in every situation.
Some moments call for education. Others require coaching. There are times when enforcement is necessary. What matters is understanding the context and responding appropriately.
She places particular emphasis on explaining the “why,” especially for tasks that feel repetitive or unnecessary. Equipment pre-use inspections are a common example.
On most days, they feel routine. On the day something fails, they become critical.
“When it matters,” she says, “it really matters.”
That understanding shifts compliance from obligation to due diligence, not just for the organization, but for the individuals signing their name to the work.
Looking Ahead: Data That Supports Better Decisions
Michelle sees predictive analytics as a future opportunity for safety, but only if organizations first build strong data foundations. With enough reliable, consistent data, safety teams can begin identifying trends, high-risk activities, and leading indicators that allow intervention before incidents occur.
She also sees value in emerging tools that analyze images for hazards, helping teams identify risks more quickly and consistently. Used correctly, these tools support awareness and decision-making rather than replacing human judgment.
The future of safety, in her view, is not about removing people from decisions. It is about reducing blind spots so better decisions can be made.
The Hardest Risk to Control
Despite strong systems and proactive initiatives, Michelle is clear that driving remains the hardest risk to manage.
Urban congestion, construction zones, weather conditions, and the growing mix of vehicles create complex, unpredictable environments. Telematics help identify behaviors such as harsh braking, sharp turns, and speeding, allowing for targeted coaching and intervention.
Even with these tools, risk can never be fully eliminated.
In these situations, safety becomes about managing reality, not maintaining the illusion of control.
A Practical Philosophy That Resonates
Michelle’s approach to safety is grounded, disciplined, and honest. She raises standards, makes performance visible, and focuses relentlessly on awareness where it actually matters.
Her philosophy is simple:
“Safety works when it makes sense to the people doing the work.”
And in environments where attention can be the difference between routine and incident, that mindset makes all the difference.
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