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Employee Engagement

By Josh Williams, Ph.D. For decades, organizational leaders have used incentives to try and motivate safety. The idea is that providing money for injury avoidance will get employees to “try harder” to stay safe. In reality, it simply encourages non-reporting which is why OSHA now frowns upon outcome-based incentives. Fortunately, most leaders using incentives have moved to process-based rewards. This brings up several important considerations: Proactive, process-based incentives are substantially better than those that are outcome-based. Process-based incentives, when used correctly, can be effective. However, they can be “pencil whipped” too The best “incentive” is genuine appreciation and ongoing recognition. Cautions with Process-Based Incentives Employees may

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Company leaders frequently use videos to showcase their support for ongoing safety efforts. These efforts are often well received but sometimes miss their mark. If the leader lacks empathy or seems out of touch these videos can actually do more harm than good. Here are some tips for creating executive safety videos that hit their mark: Drive your message home. Stay on message and keep reinforcing it. No other medium grabs attention like video, but you can quickly lose your audience if you lose message focus. Above all, keep it simple.Keep it short. Long videos put people to sleep.

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. In Part 1 of this blog, active steps were addressed to reinvigorate your behavioral safety program with BBS 2.0. This included transitioning from lengthy (often pencil whipped) checklists and quotas to a more robust program focused on: Conversations over cardsPeople over paperQuality over quantityHigh leadership and employee engagementFixing problemsAdvertising improvementsShowing appreciation for involvement Setting up BBS 2.0 involves shortening and redesigning your card to promote better safety conversations and to address identified problems, involving employees in process design to increase discretionary effort, simplifying how cards are managed and analyzed (more focus on SIF potential), and creating or rebooting

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By Eduardo Lan Organizations and their leaders often work on improving safety culture and safety performance by means of tightening up safety systems and providing both technical and non-technical training. They also engage in safety coaching focused on observing and correcting unsafe behavior and conditions. Although all of this is necessary and important, it is insufficient to generate a safe workplace. Ultimately, it is people who choose to follow rules and procedures and engage in safe work. Thus, no amount of safety training, system improvements and/or behavior management will be sufficient if people don’t want to work safely. Making a Safety Connection:

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By Josh Williams, Ph. D. Is your BBS process stale? Do these symptoms of a flailing program sound familiar? Overemphasis on quotasPencil whipped formsFocus on quantity but NOT qualityOverly long checklistsNo open-ended questions on card; few meaningful comments providedNo conversations following observationsObservations only being done by a select groupWeak analyses of observation data and commentsCards going into a “black hole” with little feedback share back to employeesFew improvements based on observation feedbackLow interest from employees and supervisors If this sounds like your program, it’s time to level up with BBS 2.0. BBS 2.0 focuses on the quality of conversations with observations and making tangible

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By Eduardo Lan Leaders play a crucial role in the success of an organization. It is they who set the standard for what is acceptable and desirable within the group and the criteria by which you can get promoted or fired. As such, team members look to their leaders to gauge expected behavior. As the saying goes, “that which my boss finds interesting, I find fascinating.” Unfortunately, these expectations are not always clear, leaving team members confused and guessing. According to a Gallup study, 50% of managers don’t set clear expectations, which ultimately has a negative impact on productivity and results (Holland,

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