Employee Recognition & Engagement Resources

Luckily, this can all be avoided by taking proper safety precautions and making sure that your team is fully engaged at all times. One of the best ways to achieve this is by implementing a comprehensive Safegagement strategy.

In the past, we’ve discussed the importance of active employee engagement as it relates to safety in the workplace. And within those discussions, we’ve placed an ongoing emphasis on maintaining proper channels of communication. So, today we’re going to dive a little deeper into this facet of engagement and highlight 10 ways you can improve your ability to create a safer working environment by receiving and disseminating the right information—in the right way.

When building an effective recognition strategy for the workplace, incentive programs can play a key role in developing higher levels of active engagement. Combined with additional tactics, such as employee referrals, milestone awards and wellness packages, these efforts have the potential to increase productivity, employee ownership and even individual self-worth. Keep in mind that if you choose to incentivize your company’s safety program, it must be done in a manner that’s conducive to your policies, efforts and regulations. If incorrectly set into motion, you run the risk of encouraging team members and managers to hide and/or not report injuries that occur.

Decades of research have shown us that companies that fully engage with their employees experience 48% LESS safety incidents … and that’s not all. According to a Gallup study, those same companies also experience 41% higher quality levels, 22% higher profitability and 21% higher productivity.

We’ve spent years researching these differences and have developed a powerful concept aimed at helping every brand build upon the successes of these companies. We refer to it simply as “Safegagement^TM.”

Safegagement isn’t just about safety -- it’s about your company’s bottom line.

This past September at the NSC Expo in Atlanta, OSHA presented the preliminary Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Workplace Safety Violations, reported during the 2015 fiscal year. What's interesting about this list is that it nearly mirrors the same list from 2014, indicating a trend in the most vulnerable areas in on-the-job safety.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulates organizations based on the hours of service (HOS) that are placed on drivers to prevent accidents caused by driver fatigue and to ensure that proper protocol is being followed regarding hours spent on the road. Manual log books have long been the way drivers have been expected to account for their duty status. However, with the advent of new technologies such as electronic on-board recorders (EOBR), most of the responsibility has been taken off of the driver while making the duty status process less susceptible to falsification.

This shift is a great thing for all parties involved, right?

To date, we have explored the first six rules of the 7 NEW Rules of Employee Engagement: Culture, Resources, Communication, Appreciation, Well-being, and Enthusiasm. Today, we will dive into the seventh and final rule of the 7 NEW Rules of Employee Engagement, Safety, and its key role in strengthening employee engagement, while maintaining and creating an attentive work environment.

Rule # 7 SAFETY:
Encourage employees to work both efficiently and safely. Recognize those employees who maintain a safe and healthy working environment for themselves and others.

As an employer, it is your responsibility to conduct a safe and healthy workplace for your employees. If it’s improving an existing safety incentive program or developing one from scratch there are several things that need to be in line before setting up a safety incentive program.

5 Things to Consider Before Launching a Safety Incentive Program

Prior to launching a safety incentive program, make sure you have these steps in place:

I received a phone call from our President last week and the words, “you need to change the company culture to be more aware of the importance of safety” came flooding in like lava.  Quickly jumping online and searching the words "change company culture", then "company culture changes", and then "how to change the culture of a company."  It went on, and on, and on until I thought my head would explode. I leaned back in my chair from exhaustion and said “think, think, think!”  Then it hit me - when I want my children to change their behaviors I recognize and reward them. If I simply ask them to clean their room, it’s a guarantee that their beds will remain unmade, laundry is on the floor, and there are most definitely candy wrappers that just missed the trash can.  When they are reminded they only get an allowance and a huge star on their chore board next to their name if the task gets done, it’s done in minutes flat, no complaining.  Amazing how that happens.