Not bad just isn't good enough when it comes to engagement
Interesting read in ISHN regarding engagement supervisory levels has with workplace safety. While at first sight not depicting a disastrous picture it clearly spells out that different companies have different levels of engagement of their supervisory/management level with workplace safety.
While we all like to believe that our corporate culture is conducive to safety and that the message is well understood by our employees, especially supervisors, the reality seems to show that there are still enough organizations where there is a strong disconnect that originates, at least partially, from the upper management not selling or living the core values, of which, presumably, occupational health and safety is one of them.
The "People in Construction Report 2019" (link included in the article below) seems to suggest that only 30% of our employees are engaged (which is actually better than numbers from other reports), mostly because they don't feel supported by management. Only 50% of the supervisors report being set up for success....which roughly translates that the other 50% feels they are set up for failure.
The "Field -Office Chasm" section of the report clarifies the picture - the people in the office, physically closer to management, have a way fuzzier feeling about the organization that the employees on the field. It looks like the positive perception decreases with the physical distance, and it is because people care about visible leadership. You trust and follow what you see; after all, 83% of all information we process comes from seeing. To engage our field employees more we need to be physically closer to them, we have to get out of our comfort zone and be ready to share with them their workplace. Because our employees can and would be able to be more committed and offer the organization more value if only we would offer them more of the management's time and attention. Management by walking around seems to have a strong case in these findings.
Enjoy the reading and let me how you feel about my summary!