Over the last 15 years of working with organizations, we have found that rarely, if ever, do processes fail as a result of lack of information. Success or failure nearly always boils down to attitudes and motivation. The information we have now on injury prevention will change in the next 6 months as will the equipment we use. What won’t change are attitudes and motivation—unless we deal with them as a part of the process. And when attitudes and motivation remain the same, advances in information and equipment prove to be less meaningful in injury prevention.

10 Influences on Attitude

Last week, we listed 10 attitude influences that we found interfered with the success of companies who were struggling with their injury prevention process. Let’s go through the list now and view these instead as potential energy sources that you can turn to as you implement each step of your process. This will help you identify and address the attitudinal issues before they have a negative impact on the process.

1. Commitment. Once a process is started DON’T STOP! You can change it, you can grow it, slow it down, speed it up or change directions, but the bottom line is that the injury prevention process can’t be stopped without impacting the perceptions towards the company’s commitment. This means companies need to start the process at a level of energy that can be sustained over the long haul. Start with low profile activities and reasonable expectations. This provides the company with the opportunity to exceed expectations. In many instances the employees are waiting to see the process fizzle. They’re not going to get on board until the company has demonstrated that the process has become part of the normal course of business.
2. Communication. Lack of communication is one of the main reasons injury prevention processes fail. Take advantage of communication mechanisms already in place in your facility and incorporate injury prevention into these activities. Communication doesn’t have to mean scheduled seminars or videos. It can be 15 second updates on process status or feedback on an idea someone submitted. Communication can be achieved through shift meetings and toolbox talks, memos, posters, informal conversations, intercom briefings and whatever other modes of communication currently exist in the facility.
3. Consistency. Don’t send mixed signals. Don’t state that safety is a driving force in the company if the environment is in direct conflict with this message. Messages presented in the classroom, on posters, in shift meetings and in videos need to be consistent with the messages conveyed by management and supervisors in the work environment. Example: For years companies train employees to wear hard hats and safety glasses. They develop policies and reinforce them in the workplace. Employees learn that there are repercussions to not using PPE. Then the company holds a class that instructs the employees on lifting techniques. The employees are told that this is important because people are hurting their backs and the company cares about their health. The employees go back to work and continue to lift the same way they have for 25 years. No one comes by and tells them to lift the way they were instructed in class. The problem here is that employees perceive that the company is truly serious about hard hats and safety glasses but not as committed to back injury prevention.
4. Accountability. Make expectations clear. Make repercussions clear and equitable. Spread responsibility out to everyone who will be impacted by this process. As part of an injury prevention process I’ll talk to the employees about more demanding and less demanding ways of performing a particular job. I’ll then ask them which method they think makes the most sense. They almost always pick the less demanding way, as long as it doesn’t take more time. They tell me the reason they don’t perform the task this way is because of habit. I then work with the employees to write their own policies and procedures that will help them change their habits.
5. Inclusion. Don’t exclude people who will be impacted by the process. Exclusion leads to resistance. Invite people into the process. This can be achieved by establishing injury prevention teams within departments, conducting surveys that invite feedback (remember to inform people of the survey results) and providing regular memos and updates that keep people abreast of what is going on in the process and ways that they can contribute.
6. Recognition. The easiest way to recognize people is by simply patting them on the back for working safely. Industry is well-versed in reacting to things that have been done wrong. The easiest way to get recognized in our current system is to experience an injury. For people who are hungry for recognition this creates quite a dilemma. All too often we see good workers get sucked into the workers’ compensation system where they receive a great deal of attention and struggle to return to productive work. It’s time for companies to use recognition to their benefit by expending energy for the positive activities as well as the negative. To be effective a company doesn’t need to promise employees a company jacket or color television if they will work safely. Incentives can be as simple as ordering pizza for a department, a simple memo or just a simple pat on the back or a “thanks” for their effort.
7. Flexibility. Remember Murphy’s Law! Problems that arise in an injury prevention process are no different from problems that occur regularly on a production line or in a quality process. Periodic problems or obstacles give us valuable information upon which to improve the process. Companies are constantly searching for problems in quality and productivity so they can improve their product. Look at “glitches” in the injury prevention process as opportunities to grow and change, not as opportunities to abandon your efforts. A company’s commitment to sticking with a process despite problems helps demonstrate to the employees that the company is willing to do what it takes to make the process a success.
8. Respect. Provide workers a grace period to acclimate. This reassures them that you recognize how hard it is for them to embrace change. As a part of an injury prevention process I encourage supervisors to deliver frequent brief messages about safety and injury prevention to their employees. While most supervisors see the value of this, many feel uncomfortable delivering the message to workers. So I work with them to improve their skill and comfort level to the point where this can become a more normal part of their jobs.
9. Creativity. Everyone’s day is already full. It often takes creative thinking to find ways to make injury prevention part of the normal course of business (there rarely is time for injury prevention if it is viewed as an addendum to productivity and quality). One company wasn’t sure how to communicate frequent safety messages to the employees who were out in trucks all day. I asked them how they contacted employees in emergencies and they said they call them on the CB radio. I asked if they could call the employees on the radio once in a while to remind them to stretch and be careful? They said, “We’ve always thought of these as the ‘emergency radios’. Now the dispatcher gets on the radio every 20 minutes or so and reminds people to be careful.
10. Fun. Laughing and injury prevention are not mutually exclusive. All of us are more willing to put energy into those things that make us laugh or feel good. Most people don’t want to participate on an injury prevention committee or safety committee because we feel like it is going to suck the energy right out of us. Be willing to laugh, be willing to smile and be willing to have some fun.

Using Attitude to Make Injury Prevention Work

When the preceding energy sources are attended to effectively you begin to hear people referring to how the injury prevention process “feels” vs. how it “looks”. The fact is that most of us act on how we feel. Companies may believe that it is not their responsibility to keep everyone happy and motivated. This is true. However, companies must recognize that there’s a cost to this attitude.

Imagine that a company implements an injury prevention process and over a 12-month period they cut their losses by 12%. That’s pretty good and many companies would be happy with this. However, is 12% the best that they could achieve? If you were one of the workers who were injured during this period are you going to feel that a 12% decrease is something to celebrate? Think in terms of your own family. If you have 10 kids, how many injured kids would be acceptable? Would you celebrate a 12% reduction in injuries to your family? While it may not be practical to treat employees like family it is important to recognize that employees who have a strong sense of their worth will make better choices when it comes to their safety. Increasing an employee’s sense of value by attending to the energy sources that impact attitudes can help a company make a “quantum leap” in the injury prevention process.

Conclusion

Until organizations begin to focus on the attitudes and motivation of their workforce, they’ll never get the full benefit of their injury prevention dollars. A good ergonomic change can reduce injuries, but a person with a negative attitude can get hurt anywhere! Injury prevention and attitude aren’t mutually exclusive. Putting in place a process that addresses both the physical and the emotional will give your organization the biggest return on investment.

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