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In Part 1 of this series we introduced a three step approach to getting employees to “buy-in” to your safety culture.  Step #1 was to create a vision statement that communicates your safety goals and how you plan to achieve them.  We’ll now look at the two remaining steps.

If you are anything like me, there are certain movies that “get to you.”  Personally, I find myself choking up every time I watch the movie “Field of Dreams”.  At the end of the movie, Ray Kinsella realizes that the reason he built the baseball field on his farm was to resolve an issue with his father.  The coup de gras is when they get to have a game of catch, and when I watch that scene I experience real emotions that bind me to the story.  This is what happens during Step #2 in the process: You create buy-in by using vicarious experiences, or stories.  Share stories with your employees of real people who were affected both negatively and positively by safety-related events.  A great example that comes to mind is the poem, “I Could Have Saved A Life That Day,” which describes an actual supervisor who decided not to confront a safety violation that ultimately resulted to an employee’s death.  Vicarious experiences like this have a huge impact on employees’ motivation, and consequently their level of commitment to safety.

Step #2 is an ongoing process during which you motivate your people to buy-in to the vision created in Step #1.  Once that is accomplished, it is time to move to Step #3: Change your organization’s culture by connecting employees’ performance directly to the safety vision that they committed to in Step #2.  This is done through both praise and discipline.  For example… “Joe, we all agreed that our goal is to be incident free this quarter, and when you reminded the team to have a JSA meeting before starting the job you helped us meet that goal.  Thanks.”  It takes 10 seconds to praise someone using the vision statement, and every time you do this it strengthens the employee’s resolve to carry out the safety vision.

There are also times when we must discipline because of unsafe acts.  For example… “Sam, we all agreed that our goal is to be incident free this quarter and I noticed that you were grinding without a face shield…”  By using the vision statement that everyone has already bought into, you are tying the specific action back to a common, and much larger purpose.

Creating a culture of safety is complex and requires, among other things, that we do not overlook people’s motivation to work safely.

Continue to work diligently on your safety journey and remember why you do so; it’s the right thing to do.

Technorati Tags: motivation, rad group, safety

Posted in Safety Articles by Michael Allen. Michael Allen is the Director of Marketing and a facilitator for The RAD Group. Michael and The RAD Group are renowned experts in the areas of safety leadership, performance management, culture change, and organizational communications.

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“This is the way we’ve always done things”.  “You better put on your PPE or the safety rep. is going to write you up”.  If these comments can be heard at your workplace, you are facing an ownership problem.   These folks see safety as something “they” want me to do, not something that “I” want for myself and my co-workers.  So what can we do?  The solution lies in three simple steps, which we have found great organizations do anytime they try to build a sense of ownership among their employees.  However, let’s first look at how motivation affects behavior.

In this post we’re going to focus on how we can influence change by targeting personal motivation and how we impact the motivation of others.  Your goal should be to create a culture in which people not only abide by their organization’s safety programs, but also see those programs as their own.  I once had someone ask me why we should care if employees buy-in to safety, because, according to this particular skeptic, “Safety is a condition of employment.”  The best answer can be found in this short anecdote.

In the early 1900s there was a very skilled Italian sculptor that decided to move to New York City in hopes of making it big.  He soon found that selling his sculptures to the local galleries was nearly impossible.  So, to make ends meet, he took a job as a mason for a local construction company.  For months on end, he carved half circles and diagonal lines into 4 foot by 4 foot blocks of granite.  Eventually, he began to hate his new life.  Not only had he not made it as a sculptor, but he had fallen so low that all he did was carve half circles and diagonal lines day after day.  He decided to take a walk one day to ponder his plight.

As he walked through an unfamiliar part of the city, he saw a newly built office building in the distance.  It was the most beautiful sight that he had seen since arriving in America.  As he got closer to this masterpiece, the detail become evident to his unsuspecting eyes.  As he stood in front of the building, he began to weep.  You see, this entire building was made of 4 foot by 4 foot granite blocks with the most beautiful designs on them – half circles and diagonal lines.  This was his creation.  His dreams of being an artist had not been broken.  Rather, he was the victim of a common management flaw.  The fact is, we care a great deal about things once we understand “what’s in it for me”.

So how can we go from showing employees “what’s in it for them” to their taking ownership in our safety culture?  We have found that the best organizations follow three common steps.

The first step is to create a vision statement.  This can come in many forms, but ultimately a great vision statement should tell people where you want to go and how you want to get there.  For instance, “Our goal is to have an incident free quarter (where you want to go) by eliminating hazards, communicating any risks that may still be present, and holding one another accountable to our safety policies and procedures (how you’re going to get there).  Once you have your vision statement created, make it visible everywhere your people work.  That’s step number one.

In our next post we will talk about steps 2 and 3.  Step 2 will focus on how we can transform a vision statement into to the driving force of the organization’s safety culture, and step 3 will address how we can motivate people to behave safely by using our vision statement.

Until then, continue your safety journey with great passion and always remember:  The ONLY reason we stress safety is because it’s the right thing to do.

Technorati Tags: rad group, safety

Posted in Safety Articles by Michael Allen. Michael Allen is the Director of Marketing and a facilitator for The RAD Group. Michael and The RAD Group are renowned experts in the areas of safety leadership, performance management, culture change, and organizational communications.

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