Making Safety Stick
How to change safety behavior for more effective engagement with your risk management system
Your risk management plan is only as effective as the way people engage with it.
Your plan has policies, procedures, templates, and training. It meets industry standards, passes audits, and it looks good on paper. But if people aren’t using those systems in meaningful ways—if they’re not fully participating in your organization’s safety program—then the program isn’t working as well as it should.
I got a call from a Trips Director at an international school in Southeast Asia. He wanted help improving how his school approached risk assessment for off-campus programs.
The process was already in place; the school had a policy that required them, and there was a templated form to prompt teachers through the document. But he was seeing a familiar pattern. Pre-trip risk assessments were reused and rushed, and the school’s teachers and administrators alike viewed them as an administrative check-box that had little purpose in driving their everyday work.
“It’s not meaningful,” he told me. “And it’s not helping us manage risk.”
This kind of disconnect and half-hearted safety participation is common in every organizational risk management system. It doesn’t mean the entire system is bad, nor does it mean the entire risk assessment process should be thrown out, or not done at all. Instead, it serves as a signal that something needs to change.
This post is about safety behavior, and how to foster lasting behavior change that improves your risk management program and the way people engage with it.
What Is Safety Behavior?
Safety behavior is a shared and observable pattern—something several or many people in your organization are doing (or not doing) in relation to the requirements and social expectations of your risk management program (Neal & Griffin, 2002). It’s not about a single person falling short; it’s about a collective behavior that reflects how your system is being used in practice.
There are two broad types (Griffin & Neal, 2000):
Safety compliance – Behaviors required by internal policy or external regulations or standards to maintain safety in the workplace. For example, completing a risk assessment, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), or reporting an incident.
Safety participation – Voluntary involvement in activities and behaviors that promote safety in the workplace. For example, offering thoughtful input in planning meetings, proactively raising concerns, or encouraging peers to work safely.
Whether required or voluntary, safety behaviors can either reinforce—or erode—an organization’s safety management system (Christian et al., 2009). If your goal is to have a more relevant and effective risk management program, then being able to identify the safety behaviors practiced and accepted by a team, is necessary.
What Makes an Attempt at Behavior Change Stick?
Not all behavior change efforts are equal. Some changes take hold, while others fade within weeks. What makes the difference?
The most lasting changes tend to have three qualities:
1. It feels relevant to how people understand their job
In a national nonprofit I worked with, the business development team didn’t see safety vetting as part of their risk management work. They viewed financial risk management and partner relationship maintenance as their primary roles. Safety was someone else’s lane.
To improve the organization’s risk management plan and ensure the department fully participated, we had to reframe safety vetting. The team viewed safety vetting as a burden, and that it was a barrier to partner satisfaction and financial goals. Instead, we had to reframe safety vetting as a selling point, one as a mutual interest among both parties, and thus, safety as a way to deepen the relationship. This reframe made the practice—vetting for safety—relevant to the team’s daily work, and it made the new behavior stick.
2. It’s supported by the systems and routines around it
At the international school, risk assessments were completed by a single teacher and saved in personal files. There was no formal expectation for shared input or process for review. Teachers did the forms because they had to, not because the process of completing the forms helped them plan better trip.
Once we created space for risk assessments to be discussed in pre-trip meetings, revised the template to reflect real planning needs, centralized storage so administrators and other teachers could access them, the behavior began to shift. Pre-trip risk assessments are more effective and relevant to everyday work.
3. It’s reinforced in small but steady ways
Formal incentives can be helpful, but aren’t always necessary. Often, small moments—like a public shout-out in a meeting or a thoughtful check-in from a supervisor—is enough to show that a safety behavior change matters.
When the business development team started sharing reflections about their new vetting process during monthly check-ins, and when leadership asked about it in one-on-ones, participation spread. Not because they were being evaluated, but because it became part of the way everyday work was done.
Why Behavior Change Efforts Fall Flat
When organizations try to improve safety engagement, the instinct is often to act quickly. For instance, “if we just introduce a new form,” “send out a reminder,” or “run a new training,” then people will know to change a behavior. While these steps can be helpful, they rarely create lasting change on their own.
One of the most common missteps is focusing on the tool rather than the environment around it. A well-designed template won’t change safety behavior if the safety task still feels rushed, disconnected, or irrelevant to their daily work. We often assume that if we just make the form clearer or the policy more detailed, people will use it more meaningfully. But if the new behavior doesn’t feel useful—or if it’s buried under competing priorities—it is unlikely to stick.
Another common trap is treating non-compliance or surface participation as a performance issue. When several people aren’t following a process the way it was intended, it’s easy to frame it as a motivation problem or assume they’re not taking safety seriously. But often, the issue isn’t with the individuals—it’s with the design of the work itself. If a task is confusing, overly complex, or isolated from the rest of the workflow, even well-intentioned staff will struggle to do it well.
And finally, there's the temptation to rely too heavily on messaging. Posters, slogans, or even strong risk tolerance statements about safety can help reinforce values—but on their own they can’t ensure positive safety behavior. If the daily experience of work doesn’t match the message, people will disengage or become skeptical. Culture change can’t come from words alone—it has to be reflected in how the work is designed and supported.
Lasting behavior change doesn’t happen because people are told what to do. It happens because the system makes it easier, clearer, and more worthwhile to do it well.
How to Start Making Safety Stick
You don’t need to redesign your whole system to improve engagement. Start small—and start intentionally.
Begin by noticing one behavior that feels fragile, frustrating, or performative. It might be how a policy or a procedure is followed, how paperwork is completed, or how vetting conversations happen with new partners. The key is to focus on a shared behavior—something that shows up across a team or department—not just a one-off issue tied to an individual.
Once you’ve identified the behavior, get curious about the environment around it. Examine the physical and the social context in which the behavior exists. Is it fostered by a form, a meeting norm, or in the locker room or at the bar after work hours? It is conscious, or does it manifest subconsciously? What tools or systems are in place, and how are those shaping what people actually do? Is it talked about openly, or is it avoided? When people do it well, is it noticed?
From there, try making one thoughtful change—not aimed directly at the behavior itself, but to the conditions that surround it. You might reframe why the behavior matters by connecting it to something the team already values, like student experience or professional reputation. You might revise the tool that guides the work by simplifying a form, clarifying expectations, or making space for workers to give input into the form or a procedure. Or, you might incorporate the desired behavior into existing conversations, like adding it to a team meeting or creating space for feedback and reflection.
Do not try to force a new behavior. Instead, make adjustments to the system where the new behavior becomes easier, more meaningful, and more natural to do it well.
Improving safety performance doesn’t require a complete culture overhaul. It requires a shift in how we design for safety participation. The way workers engage with your risk management program—the extent to which they involve themselves in safety activities and behaviors at work—is the heart of your safety management system.
Start by understanding that behavior. Then, to improve it, change the conditions around it.
That’s where meaningful change begins.
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References
Christian, M. S., Bradley, J. C., Wallace, J. C., & Burke, M. J. (2009). Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1103–1127. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016172
Griffin, M.A., Neal, A., 2000. Perceptions of safety at work: a framework for linking safety climate to safety performance, knowledge, and motivation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 5, 347–358.
Neal, A., & Griffin, M. A. (2002). Safety Climate and Safety Behaviour. Australian Journal of Management, 27(1_suppl), 67–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/031289620202701S08
