Safety, regardless if you are the CEO or the newest hire, is almost always a shared value. Increasing workers’ level of engagement with safety practices is a key goal of many organizations. Employee engagement in safety can be a predictor of employee engagement in the success of the organization as a whole and a leading indicator of a solid safety management system.
From an organizational business perspective, workplace safety is a common area where transformational change is best realized using human capital. Safety is the part of the management system for which it is easiest to gain “buy-in” from workers and the management team.
Increasing engagement—like building culture—is easier said than done. Competing priorities, such as challenging production goals, unforgiving supply chain schedules, and other factors tied directly to the bottom line, can have a negative impact on safety practices, either directly (“Get it done!”) or indirectly (“If we miss that shipping date…”).
“People are the foundation of a culture of quality. Organizations that focus on efficiency and defect elimination through the use of quality tools must avoid the danger of neglecting the individuals who build and support the culture on a daily basis,” wrote Graham Freeman in the report “Integrating Quality and Safety in Organizational Culture.” When workers are neglected or safety issues ignored in favor of production, the culture of the organization suffers.
Real-Time Engagement Data
With the right device, hub, and platform ecosystem, monitoring of the safety management system can be done in real-time or near real-time. Safety 4.0 is the key to advances we are making as we help EHS professionals in their digital transformation of safety. It’s about process, engagement, culture, and mobilizing data, and we are only beginning to understand the potential ahead of us.
Therefore, using EHS software and data to predict employee engagement is a way to determine the success of the organization. There is a tool you can use to measure metrics related to employee engagement and the impact that has on your Safety Management System: The Intelex Safety Engagement Score. We’ve created a checklist that contains the 10 leading indicators utilized by the Safety Engagement Score.
If you measure and benchmark against these leading indicators, you can determine the success of your Safety Management System and judge how engaged your employees are in your safety success.
How many can you check off? Find out now!
