The best safety cultures come when everyone involved takes ownership and is empowered to develop, communicate and use the safest work practices. The proverbial “winning hearts and minds” is a concept that is supposed to make team members want to be safe. But, how does someone win hearts and minds?
For years now many safety and health professionals have been preoccupied with building and sustaining cultures of trust and engagement. That’s key to raising safety levels. A hostile work environment under-cuts all of that work. It’s the last thing professionals want to deal with.
A research study has found that people’s energy towards colleagues has a major influence on how likely they are to leave their job voluntarily. The in-depth study was undertaken with IT workers over a four-year period by academics at the Grenoble Ecole de Management (France) and the Surrey Business School at University of Surrey.
