The first reported modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster occurred on July 22, 1933. A couple was driving on the road near the lake and apparently observed the monster crossing the road. Yes…Nessie was not swimming but running, or scooting, across the road! One year later, someone snapped a blurry photo of the creature in the water. Or was it a dog with a stick in its mouth? Who knows? Since that time, people worldwide have had an obsession with this elusive dinosaur creature that allegedly lurks in the cold Scottish lake. Okay…Really? I find it difficult to believe that a large dinosaur has been swimming around for 80 years and we haven’t been able to capture it on live video or find its remains? A large swimming dinosaur folks – for 80 years!
But as loony as the Loch Ness Monster story seems to me, Nessie believers are sold on the idea, persuaded that the – whatever-it-is – swims around deep underwater in the bottom of Loch Ness randomly poking his/her long neck out of the water for the prepared, yet unsuspecting, fisherman to snap a photo. Talk about random luck!
Similarly, I know a few high-level leaders in manufacturing that whole-heartedly believe in safety but lack participation and buy in from their teams. Do your employees have high safety potential but rarely engage in the process, choosing to remain hidden in the murky depths of safety indifference? For whatever reasons, and there are many I can think of, sometimes employee engagement in safety is like the Loch Ness Monster: potentially amazing but disappointingly absent from reality.
In the May issue of the National Safety Council’s Safety + Health magazine, Chuck Pettington, from Predictive Solutions, makes a powerful point about diversifying participation in safety programs to include operations and line-level employees. He points out that organizations that branch out to include the workforce at large in safety activities such as observations, see fewer injuries than those organizations that keep that type of work with only the management group. Additionally, these organizations that strive to diversify safety engagement activities like inspections and observations collect a “better assessment of critical safety conditions and behaviors, but also will give you more buy-in from your whole organization.” So a diverse workforce engaged in the safety process makes for a high-performing safety environment? Yes! Also, I noticed that “buy-in” word again. It must be important. Let’s explore that idea!
The Loch Ness Monster… I just don’t buy it! Similarly, many employees don’t fully engage in their company’s safety program because they’re not bought in. A workforce that isn’t bought in is apathetic toward the cause. This apathy leads to lackluster safety performance. We can’t have that! Robert Pater and Craig Lewis from SSA/MoveSMART co-wrote an article called Strategies for Leading Engagement. This article found in the May issue of Professional Safety magazine, explores reasons why employees “disengage” from cultural focal points (including safety) of a company. Among the many reasons they name, employees don’t buy in to safety is the idea that management and employees’ values and interests “grow apart.” In other words leadership of an organization initiates an aggressive campaign to be safe and eventually the safety campaign fizzles away to the pre-campaign state. Pater & Lewis point out that often management focuses on safety for a time and then moves on to other things leaving employees to wonder if the effort amounted to just a temporary flavor-of-the-month — like old Nessie making an apparent sporadic appearance in the lake only to disappear again! People get excited about the report she surfaced and look for her but eventually let her go after its evident she’s nowhere to be found. Not sure if Nessie is a girl or boy dinosaur…
With safety, management can’t afford to create ostensible campaigns that, when fully exposed, are just a check mark on a to-do list intended really only to accomplish a thoughtless directive of some sort. This type of program won’t hit the mark! Employees’ buy-in comes from enduring, meaningful and sincere safety programs that wrap around a core value of safety. Ever hear this saying that echoes a sincerity theme: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care?” Employees sense motives and don’t buy in until they discern sincerity. The burden of establishing enduring and meaningful motives and proving sincerity to garner buy-in belongs to leaders.
However, programs ideally should rely on both management and employees working together to eliminate hazard. A shared responsibility with equal accountability will achieve parallel buy-in by all to the safety program. This type of engaging safety program will draw out employee participation from its hiding place and turn the myth of employee participation into a dinosaur-sized reality swimming in a clear lake that all can see.
If we ever do discover Nessie is real, I don’t recommend swimming in that lake! I do, however, highly recommend you do all you can to create a safety program that rallies a diverse group to the cause and reaches far beyond the management team to the troupes turning wrenches, loading product and everything else you do to move your business. Hey! I see the Loch Ness Monster over there! An impressively large safety creature made up of employees that are blotting out hazard in the workplace with its immense size. What an impressive sight to behold. Let’s draw Nessie out of her hiding place and work together to make workplace danger a myth!
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