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Safety Systems

By Brie DeLisi Creating and implementing safety changes in an organization is no easy task. There are so many opportunities for failure – not having a thorough plan, unanticipated roadblocks, a lack of resources, ill-suited programs and procedures. Even if all of those items are covered, the most impactful is whether or not there is buy-in from the greater employee population. Below, we’ll cover tips on how to generate employee buy-in when making changes to organizational safety. Employee Involvement – perhaps one of the most critical steps is to actually involve employee representatives in the change process itself for a number of

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Effective leaders continuously look for ways to increase employee safety commitment. Employees who feel committed to the organization are more likely to work safely, caution others for safety, and get actively involved in safety efforts. Those who aren’t committed rarely go beyond the call of duty for safety or anything else. In fact, they may have more serious issues such as non-compliance, absenteeism/tardiness, and confrontations with others. Organizational commitment consists of (Saal & Knight,1995): Strong support and acceptance of the organization’s values and goals. The willingness to put forward considerable effort for the organization. A strong desire to maintain membership

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD It is not a secret… when the workforce perceives that management considers safety to be as important as production, this is associated with great outcomes. A group of researchers decided to dig in deeper (1). They collected data from employees working in hazardous jobs and found what they suspected — there is a significant relationship between management commitment to safety and higher worker safety motivation, higher safety participation (safety behaviors that go above and beyond what is required), and lower injuries (1). They took it a step further by examining what these relationships look like when employees report

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By Josh Williams, Ph. D. Leaders need to make sure they set intelligent safety goals to improve performance and prevent SIFs. Proper goal setting helps field leaders and employees understand the value of a unified greater purpose. They also set objective, actionable behaviors which should be integrated into daily activities. Research demonstrates that there is a statistically significant reduction in injuries when leaders effectively articulate a compelling vision and inspire employees to work towards goals that meet that mission (Hoffmeister et al., 2014). Also, a 10% improvement in employee’s understanding of organizational values and goals results in a 12.7% reduction in

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D.Having the right attitude for safety can be a challenge, particularly as we get back to work during the COVID era. Not only are people stressed out about COVID, but work activities may also seem less consequential than normal with constant news about COVID deaths and sinking economies. Here is a model for assessing attitudes that may be useful for honest self-appraisal and for influencing others. Attitudes can be classified as Complainers, Spectators, and Champions (adapted from Yanna, 1996). Leaders can use this information to positively influence employee attitudes for COVID re-entry. Types of attitudes to COVID re-entry: Complainers usually voice

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By Brie DeLisi Returning to work will require physical work environment changes, as mentioned in Blog 2 of this series, and it will also require considerations around Safe Working Procedures and PPE (personal protective equipment), as it is not likely that employees can just go to work ‘business as usual’. Prevention and physical environment changes should be the first line of defense, followed by administrative and procedural changes, then the last line of defense with PPE. Procedural considerations are of the utmost importance - consider a customer service call center in which first shift starts at 8:00 AM, while the night shift is

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