Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/440030
AGGREGATES MANAGER January 2015 26 To achieve a sustainable culture change, employees must be meaningfully engaged and empowered. by Zach Knoop Employee Involvement I have heard repeatedly from leaders of or- ganizations looking to improve their safety performance that they want their employees to take responsibility for safety. And I have seen countless organizations try and fail to make this culture shift through traditional approaches to managing safety. What has proven to be effective, not only in safety, but in other business functions as well, is when the management system encour- ages active employee involvement in the activities that are meant to keep them safe. In 40+ years of working with organizations around the world, safety management expert Dr. Dan Petersen identified the active participation of employees working within the safety system as an essential ingredient to achieve success in safety. It is one of his six criteria in establishing a culture of safety excellence, but fully understanding the ben- efits of active participation, and how the manage- ment system either supports or inhibits it, eludes many organizations. According to the group of safety thought leaders with whom I work at Caterpillar, active participa- tion requires ever-open avenues and channels where people feel a welcome invitation to get in- volved. It is more than creating a "suggestion box," attending a safety meeting, or observing someone work; it's about actively soliciting and valuing employee involvement and engagement. It cannot be created artificially, and it cannot be bought. Ac- tive participation will also not be achieved through leadership mandates. Participation is a desire that comes from within. People respond to how they are treated and rarely to a strategy of sudden participation. Participation will never work as long as it is treated as a device to get somebody else to do what you want. Participation must be based on respect, fairness, transparency, strong two-way communication, and principles that recognize the empowerment of what it means to be human. Dr. Petersen wrote an entire book on the subject of employee involvement titled Authentic Involve- ment. In it, he stated that authentic involvement should be every organization's ultimate goal. He defined authentic involvement as "worker partici- pation where the worker engages in activities that satisfy that person's human needs, and thus are motivational." Truth be told, the frontline employee, that miner working on the crushing spread, often times has the best understanding of the hazards that are present and how to resolve the safety issues. Given the chance to be engaged in the safety pro- cess, frontline employees will offer practical, often