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October 2020

By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Forward thinking leaders are continually searching for ways to advance safety culture and prevent serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). Several years ago, I published a book with Government Institutes entitled, “Keeping People Safe: The Human Dynamics of Injury Prevention.” The book was designed to be a user-friendly guide for leaders to improve safety culture and performance. Here are key takeaways from the book that may help your safety improvement efforts. Each of the five sections in Figure 1 are detailed in this 5-part Blog Series following with Systems. Safety Systems One of the challenges with safety change efforts is

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Forward-thinking leaders are continually searching for ways to advance safety culture and prevent serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs). Several years ago, I published a book with Government Institutes entitled, “Keeping People Safe: The Human Dynamics of Injury Prevention.” The book was designed to be a user-friendly guide for leaders to improve safety culture and performance. Here are key takeaways from the book that may help your safety culture improvement efforts. Each of the five sections in Figure 1 will be detailed in this 5-part Blog Series starting with Leadership. Leadership Early research in industrial psychology from World War II

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. There are fundamental leadership skills leaders need to exhibit to demonstrate genuine “owning it” for safety. These safety leadership skills represent observable and measurable knowledge, skills, abilities and personal attributes that contribute to increased discretionary effort and improved organizational safety culture. Caring about safety is not enough. Good intentions are put into practice through behaviors and skills. The following ten skills and proficiencies reflect safety leadership best practices. 1. Vision for safety. Leaders need to establish broad health and safety expectations for their organizations. This includes supporting proactive safety efforts beyond outcome statistics. It also involves maintaining focus on

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Employees are engaged when they feel energized, dedicated to their job, and absorbed in their work (1). Engaged employees give companies a competitive advantage because they are willing to go the extra mile. Engagement researchers have found that employee engagement is associated with less burnout and absenteeism, higher job satisfaction, less turnover, stronger organizational commitment, better job performance, and an improved service climate (2). In addition to the organizational benefits, engaged employees experience health benefits such as lower levels of anxiety and depression, higher levels of perceived physical health, and quicker recovery time from work (3). Clearly, it

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD An engaged workforce has strong, positive effects on safety. Engaged employees are more willing to go the extra mile and take pride in their work, so it should be a goal for leaders to create an environment for engagement in order to promote a safer workplace. Consider the following when developing your plan to promote employee engagement in a safety context: Help employees see the value in their work. When you help employees to see how their work connects to the bigger picture, this creates meaning. It is important to show workers how their role and safety connect to

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