How do you get employees to find their focus in safety when some show up at work in the morning barely a degree or two above comatose?

It started on a conference call with my client's Safety Day organizing committee. They had chosen me to be the closing keynote safety speaker for a series of safety meetings. We spent a considerable amount of time preparing for the event, reviewing and discussing the pages of responses to my pre-event questionnaire. It was during the discussions that one of the committee members made an off-handed comment that may just prove to be a great tool to get employees to buy-in to safety.

To attract the people who already buy-in to safety as a personal value, you need to study the example of how guitar-stores hire employees.

You don't find personal values on a résumé. The résumé is a lousy tool for finding engaged workers with a set of personal values that buy-in to safety. A résumé doesn't give you that information. It only tells others what a worker was allowed to do in their last job - not what they were good at, not what they stand for and certainly not what makes their bum hum (excites them and drives high motivation).

Make safety buy-in about what your employees can gain, not what they have to lose.

We don't buy-in to a financial plan because of what we might lose. We don't buy-in to a healthy lifestyle because of what we might lose. We don't buy-in to personal development because of what we might lose. We don't buy-in to going to university because of what we might lose. But safety is focused on reminding workers of what they might lose if they don't comply - instead of showing people how safety buy-in makes life better.

Accidents don't happen in the safety manager's office. They happen in the field. That's where the management of safety must take place. High safety performance doesn't magically come about in organized safety meetings, although good safety meetings are part of the solution. Safety performance happens when you deal with safety issues, decisions and behaviors one on one.

Just because they wear safety gear doesn't mean they will choose safety in every moment.

Do not confuse an employee's willingness to abide by safety rules as proof that they accept safety as a personal value. Just because they have never had an incident doesn't mean they choose to buy-in to safety.

Never in history have there been more safety professionals in the workplace. Never in history have there ever been more certifications in safety. Never in history have the rules of the OH&S Act had more teeth. And yet, workplace incident numbers continue to rise. And there is a reason.

Engagement is the biggest problem in the workplace today. The surveys tell us that 71% of employees are NOT fully engaged. And it's not just Gen Y - they only account for 15% of the workforce forcing you to explain the other 56% to make it add up to 71. Stop kidding yourself. The problem is not just young workers.

Advertising is a one-way street: outward. It talks at us not with us. Memos and surveys at work are one-way communication. There is no conversation. There is no engagement. Because to build engagement, especially in safety, requires a relationship.

Safety is a marketing strategy - not a compliance program. Every word, sign, directive and safety meeting will either help or hinder your people in deciding whether to buy safety for themselves.