Employee engagement is critical for workplace safety. Disengaged employees are less likely to report injuries or hazards and comply with safety rules. To improve engagement, companies should involve employees in safety initiatives, give consideration to their suggestions, develop effective communication, provide positive feedback, and treat employees with respect. Studies show a significant correlation between engagement and better safety performance. The Caterpillar plant in North Little Rock improved engagement through programs like STACs where employees identify hazards, and positive recognition processes. This resulted in an 89% reduction in recordable injuries over three years.

1. Employee Engagement in
Workplace Safety

2. What is Employee Engagement?
• An engaged employee is fully involved
in their work and therefore will act in
the company’s best interests. Common
traits:
• satisfaction with work,
• pride in employer,
• enjoying and believing in what they
do for work,
• perception that employer values
employee contributions.
• Also known as “morale.”

3. Disengaged Employees
• Refrain from reporting minor injuries or
hazards.
• Low turnout for safety committees and other
safety-related meetings.
• No respect for safety program because
management does not seem serious about it.
• Regular safety violations because employees
do not believe they will be caught.
• Safety professionals viewed as “cops,”
adversarial.
• Safety performance does not improve even
with safety program in place.

4. Employee Justification
for Disengagement
• Nobody asks me for my opinion.
• Following safety protocols makes my job harder.
• I reported a safety concern and nobody followed
up.
• Management violates safety rules but expects
employees to follow them.
• I advocated for this safety change for years, but it
was only implemented after an accident.
• Management wants us to work faster even if it is
unsafe.
• I have been doing it this way for years and never
got hurt, why should I change now?

5. Employee Engagement
and Safety Performance
• Significant positive correlation between
employee engagement and safety performance.
• Meta-analysis by Gallup found engaged units
had 62% fewer safety incidents than those with
lower employee engagement levels.
• Positive employee environment most predictive
of good safety performance:
• respect for employees,
• open communication,
• employee involvement and participation.

6. Improving Employee Engagement
1. Involve employees in workplace safety initiatives.
2. Give consideration to employee suggestions.
3. Develop and encourage effective communication.
4. Offer positive feedback.
5. Treat employees and their ideas with respect.

7. 1. Employee Involvement
• Employee involvement benefits everyone:
• workers gain a sense of pride and ownership;
• involved workers are more likely to comply with
rules and policies;
• management can draw on extensive knowledge of
employees.
• Employee involvement is a critical component of any
safety plan.
• OSHA VPP: Involve employees in safety and health
management system in at least 3 meaningful,
constructive ways.
• OHSAS18001: Employees must participate in
specific aspects of the safety management
system.

8. Practical Ways to Involve
Employees in Safety
• Discuss proposed workplace changes
with affected employees before
implementation.
• Let employees sample PPE, hand
tools, etc. before making a change.
• Solicit employee ideas when
developing JHA’s, risk assessments,
and solutions to hazards.
• Encourage participation in safety
meetings and emergency response
teams.

9. Practical Ways to Involve
Employees in Safety
• Encourage employee suggestions
and give recognition (formal or
informal).
• Invite employees to participate in
incident investigations, workplace
safety inspections, and behavior-
based safety.
• Hold regular shift huddle meetings
and discuss safety; encourage
employee comments.
• Hold informal discussions with
employees about safety.

10. 2. Employee Ideas
• Actively seek safety suggestions and concerns from employees.
• Address concerns in a timely matter and ensure resolution.
• Always follow up with the employee.
• Express your appreciation for their ideas.
• Give them credit.

11. 3. Effective Communication
• Communication must be clear and concise:
• Address anticipated situations and
possible exceptions.
• Don’t leave room for mistaken
assumptions or misconceptions.
• Explain to employees why safety rules are in
place:
• Even if it seems obvious.
• Don’t just refer to OSHA standard or
company policy, explain the hazard.

12. 4. Positive Feedback
• Random acts of recognition (formal or informal).
• Reward employees for safe work habits.
• Behaviors that are followed by positive reinforcement are
more likely to be repeated in the future.

13. 5. Respect
• Respect employees’ ideas and
concerns.
• If an employee’s idea cannot be
implemented, give valid reasons.
• Treat employees respectfully, even
when they violate a safety policy:
• Send the “I Care” message
• Don’t be the “Safety Cop”
• Protect confidentiality when requested.
• Don’t interrupt employees while they
are working on important tasks.

14. Safety Performance
Transformation
Before an
organization can
define the
implementation
plan, the steering
team and the CEO
must develop an
understanding of
the current state of
safety and identify
gaps between the
“as is” and the
desired future state

15. Caterpillar NLR Safety Journey
● The North Little Rock (NLR), Arkansas,
Caterpillar facility:
• employs approximately 500 employees
• manufactures Motor Graders for global
distribution
• production began in June 2010
• first full year of production (2011), the
facility had a Recordable Injury
Frequency (RIF) of 5.12 with 20
recordable injuries
● In 2011, NLR facility ranked 65 out of 68
manufacturing facilities in the Caterpillar
enterprise.
● Through new safety initiatives, RIF dropped
89% by the end of 2014.

16. Safety Perception Surveys
● Safety Perception Surveys were taken by
employees on every level in order to
assess current safety culture.
● Surveys consisted of 73 yes/no questions
over 20 safety indicators.
● The goal of the survey was to use the data
to identify how well the organization was
doing in safety, what areas need
improvement and where the organization
must begin.

17. Caterpillar NLR Safety Journey
● Caterpillar Safety Services was
enlisted to help assess and improve
the safety culture through its Zero-
Incident Performance (ZIP™) Process.
● Each component of this Zero-Incident
Performance (ZIP™) Process steered
away from an after-the-incident
reactionary culture and toward an
environment where engaged
employees recognized each other for
positive behavior and participation in
improvement.

19. Improvements and Successes
● Broadened perspective and reputation of the Environmental
Health & Safety (EHS) manager and professionals from
compliance cops to trusted advisors.
● Results from a cultural assessment were leveraged to focus
improvement efforts on issues that employees actually cared
about.
● Improved upper management understanding that the messages
they send impact employee perception and actions in relation to
safety vs production.
● Leveraging the skills and experiences of craft employees to build
proactive safety programs.
● Implementation of metrics around activities that reflect the
presence of safety instead of statistics on the absence of injuries.
● Increased employee engagement and workplace positivity
through effective recognition of specific desired behaviors.

20. Positive Interaction Process (PIP)
● Goal is to “transform the current
safety observations into an
effective, on-going, Positive
Interaction Process that actively
involves all employees.”
● A PIP can be completed anytime
there is an opportunity to recognize
an employee for a safe action or to
express concern about a process
that appears to be unsafe.

21. Positive Interaction Process (PIP)
● Recognition should be specific, timely
and sincere.
● When recognized, an employee is much
more likely to repeat their positive
behavior.
● In the event of a potentially unsafe
behavior, the focus is more around a
coaching opportunity.
● A quality PIP includes 3 criteria:
○ Must be specific and positive
○ Must be clear evidence of a two-
way discussion
○ Must start with an open-ended
question for a coaching opportunity

22. Stop-Think-Act-Communicate (STAC)
● The purpose of the Stop-Think-
Act-Communicate (STAC) process
is to “Proactively involve all
employees to drive a cultural
change in safety by building a
process to equip people to
stop to identify hazards, think
to understand risk, act safely to
minimize risk, and communicate
the hazard and mitigate the risk.”
● STACs are completed by employees in their own work area and
communicated to their teams in daily meetings.
● Employees are encouraged to recognize hazards before an incident
occurs.

23. Stop-Think-Act-Communicate (STAC)
STAC Example:
A manufacturing engineer walked into
his work area without wearing a hard
hat, required PPE for the area. He
thought of the potential risk of falling
debris with the roof work currently
being completed. So, he turned around
and obtained his hard hat. On his way
back, the employee re-positioned the
hard hat sign to a more visible location
in hopes of preventing a reoccurrence
by someone else.

24. Nucor (Kankakee, IL)
Nucor created STAR (Safety
and Health) Teams, including
approximately 165 employees
(almost 50% of the total
workforce), that have focused
on specific areas to identify
and implement physical and
procedural improvements.
Moved from “protection from
hazards” to “elimination of
hazards” in six years.

25. Sherwin-Williams (IL)
Sherwin Williams employees attend
and participate in 3 or 4 safety
committee team meetings every
month. Employees are continually
encouraged to participate in the
safety process by being invited to
attend safety committee meetings,
safety audits, task hazard analyses,
risk assessments, and other safety
and health activities. Employees
have safety goals as part of their
overall performance descriptions.

26. Georgia-Pacific (Camden, TX)
Safety goals include:
• Zero recordables & zero first aids
(Target Zero Program)
• 100% employee participation in
safety & health management
system
• Specific goals for different
departments, including near-miss
forms, STARS cards, EHS cards
• 100% participation in Safety
Huddles

27. General Electric Healthcare
(WI)
Safety and Health planning is incorporated
into annual business performance goals.
These goals are reviewed regularly and are
incorporated into the goals of the
individual, safety teams, and the facility as
a whole. Employees receive updates of
facility EHS performance on a regular basis.
Employees participate in all safety element
committees, such as emergency response,
accident investigation team, chemical
management, high risk operations, and
ergonomics.

28. CF Industries (Cowden, IL)
• Employees are encouraged to
participate in all elements of the
safety and health management
system from participating in on-site
audits to having authority to stop
work if they believe an unsafe
practice is occurring.
• Employees participate in writing the
job hazard analysis.
• Employees are part of the process
hazard analysis that is conducted as
part of the PSM requirements.

29. Motorola (Schaumburg, IL)
• Motorola maintains at least six active
safety and health committees open for
employees working on all three shifts.
• During the first 3 quarters of 2004, more
than 200 employees were directly involved
in environmental safety and health (ESH)
activities, such as the Safety Champion
Teams and the Motorola Emergency
Response Team (MERT).
• These teams and other safety committees
send representatives to Region 5 and
national VPPPA conferences.

30. Lincoln Generating Facility
(Manhattan, IL)
Employees are meaningfully involved
in the problem identification and
resolution, or evaluation of the safety
and health program by:
• Participating in worksite audits
• Submitting safety suggestions
• Presenting safety training modules
• Attending safety meetings

31. Eaton OH
•Opportunity for Improvements
•Implemented ideas that will
align with this company’s vision
and mission:
•Improvements in enhancing
safety in the workplace
•Increase efficiency
•Improve quality
•Reduce costs
•Eliminate waste
Any hazard or unsafe condition is a $20
1-5 gas cards drawn weekly
Recognized at monthly safety meeting
2,000 Good Catches in 4 years
1,000 employees
2008 TCIR 1.21 to 0.72 to 0.56
2.1 million hours = 0.28 incident rate in
2011

32. Mobil Oil (Joliet, IL)
• Hourly employees from each
department participate in the plant
safety committee as well as in their
own employee safety committee,
where they have their own
opportunity to meet with the safety
department.
• Employees get involved in self-
inspections, accident investigations,
job hazard reviews as well as all
other aspects of the plant safety
and health program.

33. LyondellBasell Industries
(Morris, IL)
• Management commitment to the safety
and health of employees is highly visible.
• Employees’ recommendations regarding
safety and health are freely accepted.
• Each suggestion is discussed by
committee.
• Management attempts to address each
recommendation as though none would
be more important than another.
• They communicate their decision(s) to all
employees.

34. Marathon Petroleum Company
(Robinson, IL)
• Systems To Ensure Participation in Safety
(STEPS): a structured safety program
emphasizing direct involvement and
accountability of every employee at every
level of the organization. Monthly safety
meetings are a key component.
• Areas Communicating Trust in Safety (ACTS):
an employee-run committee that focuses on
behavior-based safety. One hourly
Coordinator is dedicated to work full-time for
ACTS, and reports to the Safety Supervisor.
• Behavioral Based Safety Contractor Advisory
Panel (BBSCAP): an extension of the refinery’s
ACTS BBS program.

35. Marathon continued
• 1600 near misses and hazards brought up by
employees in 6 plants.
• Employees look out for each other
• Incentives focus on leading indicators
• This is what you want!
• Employees bringing up safety, production,
quality, property, environmental issues.
• Use their experiences, eyes and ears.

36. Find and Fix Action Cards
•Employees are encouraged to submit their concerns on “Find and Fix
Action Cards” to resolve any safety or health issues.
•OH VPP site
•345 Actions Cards in last 18 months.
•~1000 total since 2008-2012.
36

37. Questions?