Introduction

It's a constant challenge for leaders to motivate employees to accept personal responsibility for their own safety. Or is it? No one goes to work looking to get hurt. The challenge is not to increase employee motivation to not get hurt, but rather to remove the de-motivators to not getting hurt. Whether you are a safety professional or business leader, a common goal is to create a positive environment that educates, enables, and empowers employees to make safe choices, while also meeting business goals.

Employees' actions are motivated and influenced by what they know, feel and see. However, too often the solutions for encouraging employee safe behaviors are suggestion programs, safety improvement projects, chats with leaders or threats of discipline for noncompliance. These tactics may work for a short time but will definitely not produce lasting results because they do not address the underlying behavioral norms, work processes, and systems in which employees are motivated or demotivated.

A better, long-lasting approach is one that surrounds the employees, and positively promotes, educates, enables and empowers them to make safe choices. Successful solutions focus on addressing what employees know, feel, and see to influence their actions. Whose job is this? It is everyone's job, because the solutions involve all people and all aspects of businesses. Leadership has a unique responsibility, in fact an obligation, to set the expectations, hold accountabilities, and provide the underlying education, tools and processes, all of which are designed to encourage safety behaviors.

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