I met a fellow last week who’s in charge of culture change and safety at a large oil drilling company. His goal with employees from Brazil to Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is to have them act safely on their offshore rigs. Safety is even more important than performance goals, he said. That should be an easy enough message to get across, right? Hardly. Years ago I had the chance to visit a few oil rigs, and they certainly didn’t seem like safe places—what with the grease, pipe and machinery whirling everywhere. But this executive felt he could almost eliminate workplace accidents if he could just get his managers to reward safe behaviors and his workers to internalize the safety message.
So far accidents on his watch are down significantly, and he’s doing it by asking employees not to remember how important safety is to the company or their customers, but asking employees to consider what matters most outside of work. He quoted an international study that found the three most important things in people’s lives are typically: Their god, their health and their family. (I’ve seen similar studies, including this one from 2001. )
So, for instance, if you can constantly help people remember that being safe keeps them with their loved ones, they’ll be more likely to act in the ways you want them to. The message becomes, “Your daughter/wife/mom don’t want to go to your funeral, so follow procedure.” Those types of missives have much more impact than, “Remember to put safety first!”
It’s a great concept. By thinking about the outside motivating needs of our employees, we can better position our communication of corporate values. While religion is probably off limits, is there a way today to think about how you can link your employee communication efforts to your workers’ family or health?
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