Gaining buy-in from employees and motivating them to value safety is crucial to building a strong safety culture in an organization. Yet when safety professionals are asked to identify their top challenges on the job, employee engagement is always at the top of the list.
In the 2016 What’s Working in Safety survey, conducted by BLR’s EHS Daily Advisor and sponsored by SafeStart, over half of the nearly 700 safety professionals who participated chose employee engagement as one of the top three most pressing safety concerns at their organizations. This was followed closely by a related answer choice, “employees taking shortcuts or ignoring rules,” which 48 percent of respondents selected.
Given this gap between the key role that employee engagement plays in safety culture and the degree to which many organizations struggle to obtain it, it’s clear that many safety professionals are looking for resources and new ideas for gaining buy-in from employees.
At BLR’s Safety Culture 2017, taking place September 11 and 12 in Austin, Texas, Dustin Hickey, CSP, ASP, will offer just that in his session titled The Rules of Engagement: Fresh Ideas for Motivating Employees to Embrace Safety in Your Workplace.
According to Hickey, high levels of employee engagement can give your company a competitive advantage, from boosting customer satisfaction to improving safety practices and reducing injury rates. He will discuss the best ways to motivate your workforce to embrace the notion that safety is a crucial part of their job and deliver actionable and innovative instruction on:
- Why disengagement happens and how to reenergize disengaged workers;
- Proven strategies to engage employees that can positively impact safety reporting while maintaining productivity and boosting morale;
- How to get employees to “own” safety as part of their duties;
- How to use regular safety meetings as a method of engagement;
- And much more.
Hickey, the Division Safety Manager of Texas Operations for Cajun Constructors, LLC, holds a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Safety and Health and has nearly 15 years of experience in the general, maritime, and construction industries. He has successfully grown Cajun Constructors’ safety culture and increased employee buy-in while facilitating training sessions that teach supervisors to motivate their employees to embrace safety culture.
Attend BLR’s Safety Culture 2017 to find out more. The conference, geared to both HR and safety professionals, will focus on how employers can improve safety compliance and enhance worker performance, with participants leaving with a powerful action plan to improve culture at their organizations based on case studies and proven tactics.