by Bryan Roessler

Recruiting, engaging, growing, and protecting talent are some of your most important challenges today. Listening to and responding to the recommendations and ideas of your employees will be a critical component to solving these challenges. Just as employee engagement has a direct connection to the performance of your business, employee   also has a direct connection to the success of your safety program.

While working with hundreds of organizations over the past 15 years, I observed many success stories. The organizations that achieved the greatest safety success had a highly engaged workforce. A highly engaged workforce has significantly better safety records, less absenteeism, and greater overall performance. But more than anything else, these employees watch out for one another. The ultimate goal is to create a culture that embraces the philosophy—Safety Is Everyone’s Responsibility. Employee engagement is the catalyst to achieve this goal.

Here are some effective principles to engage employees in your safety program:

1. Conduct an employee safety engagement survey to collect feedback from all levels of your organization regarding the effectiveness of your program. This will help you focus on areas of improvement and identify program successes for celebration.
2. Invite your employees to share their experiences about things that went well and also things that didn’t go so well.
3. Establish an effective safety team/committee.
4. Establish a mentoring program to bring highly experienced and highly inexperienced employees together.
5. Ensure known leaders demonstrate compliance with all company safety rules and policies.
6. Invite employees to conduct behavior-based observations.
7. Establish a positive recognition program.
8. Establish a performance-based incentive program (not tied to total case rate).
9. Obtain buy-in/input from your bargaining unit prior to instituting policies and procedures.
10. Involve employees in the selection of personal protective equipment and other safety equipment.
11. Involve employees in conducting incident investigations.
12. Establish safety as a value not a priority. Priorities can shift, but values are constant.

What is your favorite employee engagement principle?
I want to hear from you. Please send me your story (bryan.roessler@safetyillinois.org). And if you grant your permission, I’ll share them with other members on our website.