Employee Engagement is a Safety Problem Too!

Today, almost all business performance issues are tied to employee engagement.  Recently the EHS Advisor surveyed over 600 safety professionals across North America and 90% found that the greatest barrier to safe work performance is lack of worker participation.  These professional are not alone.  According to Gallup’s State of American Manager 70% of the entire United States Workforce is disengaged with their job.

The employee engagement model is a vast construct that touches almost all parts of human resource management. It is built on the foundation of earlier strategies like job satisfaction and employee commitment and the research and training plans that affect those strategies. However it is broader in scope. Because of engagement is such a strong predictor of company performance it clearly show the two –way relationship between employer and employee.

Though it is related to and encompasses these concepts, employee engagement is broader in scope. Employee engagement is a stronger predictor of positive organizational performance clearly showing the two-way relationship between employer and employee compared to the three earlier constructs: job satisfaction, employee commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. According to many HR consultants engaged employees…

“are emotionally attached to their organization and highly involved in their job with a great enthusiasm for the success of their employer, going extra mile beyond the employment contractual agreement.”

Employee recognition in all its forms has become the backbone of improving employee engagement.  Direct improvement in performance has been achieved by using this strategy.  And awards for improved safety performance (some would call them safety incentives) are an ideal way of adding recognition to your overall safety effort.  The same tools that apply within the Human resource world to combat employee disengagement are more than present in safety cultures, namely communications, training, measurement, feedback and awards.

A well planned safety recognition effort will reward improved performances, turn them into habits and help to engage your workforce.  Budgets for non-safety employee recognition has been growing consistently for years because it works to improve engagement…it can be that simple!

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net