Employers have long known that a workplace’s “safety culture” has an impact on accident rates. A strong safety culture enhances safety; a weak one breeds accidents. But “safety culture” is not isolated from the overall workplace culture—rather, it is part of it and is impacted by it. A recent meta-analysis by Gallup, Inc., has found that an engaged organization culture can reduce accident rates by as much as 70%. Are your workers engaged? How can you find out? And what can you to do promote worker engagement?
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Getting Engaged
Employee engagements have something in common with that other type of engagement Americans so often get involved in: if you want a “Yes,” you have to ask. So, Gallup asked workers questions designed to tease out their level of engagement at work—and analyzed how those results correlated with safety data provided by 53 employers. According to Gallup, organizations with strong safety cultures have three things in common:
- Their employees are committed to doing quality work.
- The company’s mission or purpose makes employees feel that their job is important.
- Workers feel that their opinions count.
Here are 6 tips based on Gallup’s research for promoting employee engagement by encouraging employees to do quality work and to feel that their jobs are important.
- Commitment to Quality. Gallup found that workers felt a commitment to quality when they:
- Have the materials and equipment to do their jobs right. Workers who don’t have the right tools, or whose tools and equipment are poor quality, are more likely to feel unsupported by their employer. If the employer doesn’t care enough to provide high-quality tools and equipment, who really cares whether the job is done right?
- Feel that they had the opportunity to do what they do best every day. Workers who feel that they are faceless, interchangeable cogs in the machine are not likely to be strongly committed to quality—or to safety. After all, who would notice? But when a supervisor or manager notices what the worker is good at and gives the worker opportunities to play to his or her strengths, the worker is more likely to put his or her best foot forward.
- Feel that their associates and fellow employees were committed to doing quality work. Interacting with coworkers in an atmosphere of mutual respect for one another and for the work being done fosters employee engagement and commitment. Conversely, workers who interact in an atmosphere of disrespect and unhealthy relationships are less likely to care about quality or safety.
- Are praised for doing good work. Without feedback, workers can’t be sure how they’re doing or where they stand. Managers encourage workers the most when they understand what sort of recognition best motivates each worker, connect that to worker performance, and offer it frequently.
- Workers feel that their job is important. This is more than a personal commitment to support their families; it is a commitment to employer’s mission or purpose. It is a feeling that the company’s existence, and thus the employee’s job, matters. To fosterthis feeling, employers can:
- Clearly define desired outcomes. Workers who do not clearly understand what is expected of them will have difficulty gauging their job’s importance.
- Connect expectations of employees to the company’s mission. In addition to understanding what’s expected of them, workers need to see how these expectations relate to the company’s mission. When they feel that the mission matters and that their contribution to it is important, they will be more engaged.
- Encourage progressing toward goals. When workers have goals to achieve that contribute to the company’s mission and when they are being coached and encouraged toward those goals, employees are more engaged.
- Show that they have a future. When managers encourage workers to strengthen their skills and grow, workers are more engaged. It’s important to encourage each worker’s development.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at four more tips from the Gallup survey on engaging your workers.