Bridging Your Organization’s Risk Management Gap: Safety motivations that drive engagement
How to leverage your colleagues’ motivations for safety to manage new initiatives more effectively
Program administrators must navigate a range of risk management priorities. Executive and senior leaders are often attuned to how safety issues affect an organization’s reputation and liability, while frontline staff tend to focus on preventing physical harms, minimizing psychosocial strain, and managing workload stressors.
The question for administrators is:
How to connect these priorities in a way that resonates at all levels and fosters genuine safety engagement?
During a recent conversation with an academic Dean at a large university, I was reminded of the body of safety motivation research in the safety science literature. We were brainstorming ways to deliver and implement new safety initiatives across the College’s different programs. Such discussions underscore a fundamental need for risk management leaders to understand what motivates staff and executives to participate in or disengage from safety initiatives.
Below, I outline concepts from safety science related to motivations for safety, focusing particularly on the nuanced roles of compliance. The goal is to highlight where risk management leaders can leverage the deeper motivations that promote more proactive safety behaviors.
Understanding the Evolution of Safety Compliance
Why Compliance Became Central
In the United States (and in many other places), a lingering sense of conflict often arises between safety science perspectives and legal or regulatory frameworks. One reason may be that although safety science has evolved dramatically, legal approaches remain grounded in older safety thinking, like Taylorism (Taylor, 1911) and Behavior-Based Safety (Henrich, 1931). These earlier models viewed drivers of safety in terms of procedures and rules and emphasized “operator error” as the sole cause of accidents.
Taylorism’s (1911) Lasting Influence
Traditional ideas from Taylorism promoted a top-down approach, in which managers controlled the workflow and workers were expected to follow strict, rule-based prescriptions. While this approach did reduce accidents in certain industrial contexts, it also established a culture of surface compliance—staff follow rules without necessarily cultivating deeper ownership or a broader understanding of safety.Behavior-Based Safety (Henrich, 1931)
Another influential perspective historically pinned accidents on “unsafe acts,” reinforcing the idea that front-line compliance is the key to safety.
Many of today’s legal and regulatory standards reflect these traditional approaches and are even popularized by the media (for example, how often do we see the media report on pilot error after a plane crash?) These effects permeate the psyche of supervisors and staff in outdoor and educational programs, who are sometimes confused or conflicted when introduced to more nuanced and complex ideas in contemporary safety science.
Wearing PPE
A participant wearing gloves while using tools is a great example of a safety behavior.
Contemporary Perspectives on Compliance
From Surface to Deep Compliance
Modern safety science challenges the notion of human error as the root cause of accidents, reframing it as a symptom of systemic issues (Read et al., 2021). Safety researchers now emphasize the importance of the underlying organizational and contextual factors that shape worker behavior. In this view, safety compliance can be conceptualized in two forms that are influenced by organizational and leadership factors (Hu et al., 2020):
Surface Compliance – A superficial adherence to rules, often driven by fear or external pressure.
Deep Compliance – Genuine engagement based on intrinsic motivation and shared understanding and alignment for safety values.
When staff display surface compliance, it might look like wearing the required personal protective equipment (PPE) only when supervisors visit programs in the field, or staff who hastily and incompletely fill out an incident report to check a box. In contrast, deep compliance reflects proactive safety behavior—like reporting incidents and near-misses to benefit organizational learning and improvement.
Recognizing these distinctions can help administrators tailor strategies that invite genuine participation in their organization’s risk management programs.
Motivations for Safety: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
An essential part of translating safety priorities is recognizing the mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that drive employees at all levels.
Intrinsic Motivation is about engaging in safety behaviors for safer and healthier workplaces out of their own inherent satisfaction and value. Intrinsic motivation is a strong predictor of safety compliance and participation in safety practices and is exemplified by internal values for personal responsibility, team cohesion, and the desire to protect others (Hedlund et al., 2016).
When workers perceive that their supervisors and organizational leaders share their personal motivators for safety, they are more likely to engage in the organization’s desired and prescribed practices (Conchie, 2013).
· Extrinsic Motivation is influenced by external rewards or consequences, such as incentives or penalties. Although rewards and punishments can significantly impact safety compliance, the effectiveness of these types of motivators varies (Neal & Griffin, 2006). For example, an incident-free bonus may encourage the need for incident reporting or partner vetting, but the duration of the desired behavior varies; often, the desired behavior fades once the incentive is removed.
Some employees respond well to external incentives and punishments. However, others—particularly those working in mission-driven outdoor and educational programs—may find that intrinsic and altruistic motivations, such as workload safety and altruistic concern for others’ wellbeing, are more compelling reasons to proactively engage in an organization’s risk management program.
For example, an executive concerned about regulatory compliance might offer gift cards to boost reporting, but the behavior often fades once the incentive is removed. Alternatively, framing incident reporting as a tool for organizational learning that protects colleagues can encourage staff to submit more incident reports, who are likely more motivated by team cohesion and concern for others.
When staff feel their input is valued and they see safety as a shared goal, their engagement will likely deepen.
– Hedlund et al., 2016
This duality of motivation underscores the complexity of safety behaviors and the need for administrators to consider both intrinsic and extrinsic factors when developing and communicating safety initiatives.
Factors That Strengthen Intrinsic Motivation and Ensure that Safety Initiatives Resonate
Several other factors described by safety science help guide administrators in fostering deeper engagement in risk management initiatives:
Individual Characteristics & Psychological Factors
Some personality traits, like conscientiousness, can enhance motivation. People with these traits tend to be more diligent and feel personally responsible for their safety practices (Zhang et al., 2021). A recent study found that individual traits like deep thinking and observing norms serve as moderating factors for workers who receive the blunt end of an abusive supervisor’s leadership style
Other psychological factors, such as feelings of job security, are also shown to influence safety motivation and participation (Probst & Brubaker, 2001). Workers who feel unsafe in their work (for example, staff who feel insecure raising concerns due to fear of retribution) lead to decreased compliance and increased risk-taking behaviors.
Social Dynamics & Peer Influence
Social dynamics within a team also contribute to safety motivation– workers are more likely to engage in safe behaviors when they feel supported by their colleagues (Hu & Casey, 2021). For example, when staff see their colleagues and leaders embrace new initiatives and model safe practices, they are more likely to adopt those behaviors.
In fact, because safety-critical outdoor work is largely unsupervised, the influence co-workers have on one another is the biggest safety motivation factor in outdoor programming contexts
– Jackson, 2016
Safety Culture & Shared Knowledge
This is why it is essential to diligently establish routines and norms in the staff group’s development process (see my post on the group process and establishing norms). A strong safety culture, defined by shared values and beliefs about safety, is key to sustaining motivation. Employees who perceive their organization as genuinely committed to safety are more likely to exhibit positive safety behaviors (Liu et al., 2021).
In my experience, genuine commitment to physical, psychosocial, and workload safety looks like a shared vision among executives, administrators, and field staff for safety priorities and practices. Underpinning this unified and aligned approach is a strong and shared foundation in safety knowledge. Colleagues who are well-informed about the safety of work are more likely to be motivated to comply with safety protocols and own new initiatives (Septian, 2023).
Intrinsic safety motivation is influenced by a variety of external factors, and it further influences safety behavior and ultimately, safety performance. Adapted from Hedlund et al., 2016.
Aligning Safety Compliance with Safety Values
Executive leaders and board members who are hyper-focused on legal and reputational risks are sometimes misguided, even though they surely do not wake up wanting their staff to fail or get hurt.
Organizational leaders who invest in their knowledge of contemporary safety thinking and practice not only gain essential skills but they also develop clearer language to articulate their priorities. In doing so, many executives discover how to align safety goals in ways that lead their organization’s approaches to legal and reputational risk management. Communicating and modeling these and other commitments to safe practices are shown to foster staff’s intrinsic motivators for compliance and safety (Basahel, 2021; Conchie et al., 2013).
Safety behaviors are complex and are influenced by both compliance and motivation. While surface compliance may meet short-term goals, fostering deep compliance drives genuine engagement and ownership of new safety initiatives and safety practices.
Organizations’ risk management leaders must establish safety priorities and promote positive and proactive behavior change by leveraging intrinsic motivators. Fostering psychologically safe and supportive work environments, establishing routines and norms, and promoting shared safety knowledge are key to bridging gaps in risk management perspectives and the underlying motivators for these perspectives. Leaders who understand and tap into these motivators create deeper engagement in risk and safety management work.
References
Basahel, A. M. (2021). Safety leadership, safety attitudes, safety knowledge and motivation toward safety-related behaviors in electrical substation construction projects. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(8), 4196.Conchie, S. M. (2013). Transformational leadership, intrinsic motivation, and trust: A moderated-mediated model of workplace safety. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18(2), 198–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031805
Conchie, S. M., Moon, S., & Duncan, M. (2013). Supervisors’ engagement in safety leadership: Factors that help and hinder. Safety Science, 51(1), 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2012.05.020
Hedlund, A., Gummesson, K., Rydell, A., & Andersson, I.-M. (2016). Safety motivation at work: Evaluation of changes from six interventions. Safety Science, 82, 155–163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2015.09.006
Henrich, H. W. (1931). Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach.
Hu, X., & Casey, T. (2021). How and when organization identification promotes safety voice among healthcare professionals. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 77(9), 3733-3744.
Hu, X., Yeo, G., & Griffin, M. (2020). More to safety compliance than meets the eye: Differentiating deep compliance from surface compliance. Safety Science, 130, 104852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104852
Jackson, J. S. (2016). Beyond Decision Making for Outdoor Leaders: Expanding the Safety Behaviour Research Agenda. Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership, 8(2), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.18666/JOREL-2016-V8-I2-7692
Liu, S., Yang, X., & Mei, Q. (2020). The effect of perceived organizational support for safety and organizational commitment on employee safety behavior: a meta-analysis. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 27(4), 1154–1165. https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2019.1694778Neal, A., & Griffin, M. A. (2006). A study of the lagged relationships among safety climate, safety motivation, safety behavior, and accidents at the individual and group levels. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(4), 946–953. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.946
Probst, T. M., & Brubaker, T. L. (2001). The effects of job insecurity on employee safety outcomes: Cross-sectional and longitudinal explorations. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6(2), 139–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.6.2.139
Read, G. J. M., Shorrock, S., Walker, G. H., & Salmon, P. M. (2021). State of science: Evolving perspectives on ‘human error.’ Ergonomics, 64(9), 1091–1114. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2021.1953615
Septian, F., & Budhi, H. (2023). The effect of safety climate on safety behaviour: the mediating role of safety motivation and safety knowledge. International Journal of Economics, Business and Management Research, 7(10), 63-76.Taylor, 1911.
Zhang, X., Sun, Z., Niu, Z., Sun, Y., & Wang, D. (2021). The Effect of Abusive Supervision on Safety Behaviour: A Moderated Mediation Model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(22), 12124. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182212124
Interested in learning more about contemporary safety science and how to apply it in your work? Sign up for my monthly newsletter.
