It’s no secret that arbitrary rules are the bane of everyone’s existence. When your rules and regulations aren’t frequently reviewed and challenged, you risk weakening your relationships between management and front-line staff.
We’ve been facilitating the interesting discussion of bettering health and safety globally, by challenging day-to-day activities and finding areas where we can make incremental improvement, each day, to create meaningful change in the long run.
A useful way to strengthen relationships between leaders and employees is to include all staff in semi-frequent discussions about these rules. These discussions need to have an emphasis on two-way communication and provide the space for staff to offer feedback about what works, while health and safety leaders can explain why particular things are necessary.
Including your staff in these discussions is a useful way to break down the barriers between H&S and other employees and create a two-way relationship. As you’re probably all too aware, the common perception of H&S errs towards negative, with many employees finding health and safety a headache caused by the endless paperwork that has to be filled out.
By including employees in decision-making about these rules you achieve two things: you communicate that you value their input, and therefore strengthen trust in your working relationship. You also help achieve H&S transparency, explaining why rules might be in place, and clarifying the process behind regulations. After all, safety professionals are not actually trying to make people’s lives more difficult - they’re trying to save lives!
Creating that two-way communication also helps front-line employees develop a stronger sense of ownership with their company, with a greater hand in decision-making and understanding of the rules. Ownership plays a useful role in ensuring work stays meaningful - far less showing up and counting down the hours until you clock out.
To avoid these discussions becoming yet another meeting (read: boring), it’s critical that the communication is two-way, with input from everyone involved. The following three questions are prompts suggested by 1% Safer book contributors, that help to make safety collaborative, not just instructive.