Sorry is this a statement or a question - from your post this sounds firmly like a cultural issue where if the signatory on the policy is only paying lip service why should anyone else in the heirarchy be any different?

A clue to part of the problem might be in the title of the post "training" are you intending to tell/instruct them what they are supposed to do/what you think they need to know? Or are you going to coach them and help improve their leadership skills and develop and improve culture that way?

Coaching is different to training and you also need to get the focus from the very senior folk in the organisation, it needs to be important to them, they need to set the tone and they also need coaching support and development.

Investigate the negativity (best to do it with smaller groups or individuals first, and don forget to feedback from the workers the will give you insight as to what the perceptions of leadership is).  It will help you understand the issues better and the feedback might be helpful in discussions with the senior management team

Can I recommend a book by Edgar Shein, Humble Inquiry, its a good read about communication and culture,  there are lost of online resources about Appriciative Inquiry names which will pop up are David Cooperrider and Geoff Vickers.

benek, you have my sympathy. I am in a similar position and it is so frustrating.

 Time is a problem- these are not the best time managers I have worked with- there seems to be an extrodinary amount of scurrying to meetings and constantly changing priorities.

I am thinking that emphsaising the advantages of good Safety management might be a way in for me, maybe this would work for you?

Hi

Managers and Supervisors, especially middle Managers are quite often caught between a rock and a hard place. They have to keep everyone happy, normally have strict KPI’s to work towards with Senior Managers breathing down their necks and a 1001 employee issues to deal with. The last thing they often want is to lose time out of the day to do ‘pointless training’ as they often put it.

They know safety is important as much as you do and the senior managers do, but it is quite often on the bottom of the list of many things to do and no matter what anyone says the operation will always come’s first, that part is glamorous and makes the money.

So how can you turn that negativity towards positivity? As others have mentioned sometimes its understanding why they are negative in the first place and what can you do to turn it around, how can you make the course useful to the Managers and Supervisors or are you ‘just giving them more work to do’.

Get them to tell you, yes you need to get certain information across but get them to tell you how they can work what you want into their working day. Think of tips and tricks which will help them, it’s amazing how many Managers have never had time management training. So put that in the training; yes you need to do Risk Assessments, but here is a good way to make life easier for you.

One thing to never do is use scare tactics and show cases of Managers getting prosecuted, negative never sells, keep the presentation or training as light as you can on law and negative. Focus on the positive reasons for doing safety. We all focus on what we are going to get out of something in a positive way.

My brother is a car sales man (and a very good one) I got him to tell me how he would sell certain safety concepts or processes. It made a big difference, I used to get marketing to look at my presentations in my last role.

You will get there, just think of what you are selling and think of the audience. What will make them want to buy into the idea that you are selling.