Employee Engagement Crucial to Safety Program Success

As noted in several of our posts, employee engagement is just as important in the safety world as it is on overall corporate culture.  Just as a hypothesis, people who don't like their job probably don't do a very good job. 

According to Evolve Performance Group, an employee engagement consultant, employees who are engaged on the job and respect their leaders are 48% safer than those who don't.

Before AwardSafety.com was in the business of providing the right kind of behavior based safety awards to increase safe behaviors, we were (and are) also in the business of providing employee recognition awards for a myriad of corporate award solutions.  That field is strongly driven by the current corporate need of encouraging employee engagement.  And some act as if it was the Holy Grail.  The problem is what these consultants don’t tell you….that employee engagement can be a controversial topic mainly because it is hard to define and even harder to tie to business metrics and a quantifiable return on investment.

Regardless, we know that an engaged employees will produce better results. And Safety leaders need personal influence skills to consistently engage their workers. 

Safety training must be more than just informative and comprehensive. It must also ensure that employees feel valuable and understand how they contribute to the organization's overall success. When was the last time you were eager to learn that you're not very good at something...and possibly irrelevant?   

Without knowing your employees current opinions and how to create a sustainable inclusive safety culture you can invalidate the workforce and prevent buy-in. That will unfortunately lead to reduced awareness on the job site. After all, if your employees I consider the safety program to be unclear and condescending, they will not pay attention.  In that sense, employee engagement is extremely important to your overall safety outcomes.  

The core of safety lives within your people, not in your plans, programs, or ideas. Employee engagement should be the foundation on which your safety initiatives should be built. 

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