From time-to-time, every organization struggles with procedural justice and safety. And I’ve begun to anticipate such challenges when various safety climate scores indicate such a concern which may be further highlighted through interviews and focus groups.
You may have strong personal and professional convictions about an issue; however, you feel you have to act in another way — and that way doesn’t align with your beliefs or values.
In the National Football League (NFL), there’s a term bantered about by owners, management, coaches, and scouts - it’s “the nerd factor.” In the NFL, it’s a positive term because it often translates into success.
I was in Atlanta last week for a conference and was having breakfast off the lobby area. The omelet man who was nearby was doing what he does nearly every morning.
If you want your managers and front-line leaders to have more influence and impact with your workers, they need to get more personal and transparent. Getting personal allows leaders to deliver a message that will have impact and help workers align their actions with their personal values.
More and more of safety and health professionals want to talk about influence rather than authority. You see, they understand that relying primarily on position or rank will simply lead to compliance -- not to individual commitment.
In 1980, Dov Zohar addressed various implications of assessing safety climate through a 40-item questionnaire in order to improve safety-related outcomes. Zohar wrote one of the first scholarly works pertaining to safety climate and I was intrigued.