One of the most difficult aspects of safety is understanding the role of employee expectations. When employees have expectations about safety that are different than their employer’s, serious issues exist that lead to distractions and ultimately to a culture that is disjointed. One way to understand employee expectations is to consider the psychological contract.

Researcher Diane Rousseau defines psychological contract as an “individual’s belief in mutual obligations between that person and another party, such as an employer.” For example, anecdotal research shows that most utility employees hired prior to 1995 believed they would have employment for life. The myriad of mergers and acquisitions and corporate consolidations of the past decade have left employees with a great deal of uneasiness. Essentially, the psychological contract has been violated. And when the psychological contract is broken, it’s tough to get employees engaged. When employees aren’t engaged in their work, it’s because organizational trust is low and they are distracted. Lack of trust and distraction are two factors that lead to unsafe behavior and subsequent injuries.

At the same time, managers are pressed to provide more work with fewer people and lower budgets. The demands of a shrinking economy, loss of organizational knowledge through attrition and retirements, and higher levels of government intervention have created changes in the psychological contract from a leader perspective. The result is that many supervisors and managers are frustrated with seemingly unrealistic expectations.

It may look hopeless. But it’s not. Taking time to understand what psychological contracts exist, how they must change, and how they affect morale can go a long way to reducing distractions and improving moral -- both factors in improving the overall safety culture.

1. Identify areas where employees are doing just enough to get by on the job, including doing what they can to avoid full compliance with prescribed work practices. This is a clear indicator that employees are not fully engaged in finding ways to continually improve the safety culture. Marginal engagement is a sure sign that employees feel like their expectations and the terms of the psychological contract are not being met.
 
2. Watch for signs that managers and supervisors are not fully committed to creating a safe workplace. When leaders at any level of the organization are merely paying lip service to safety and demonstrate a lackluster attention to activities that move the safety culture forward, this is a sign that their expectations are not being met. They are more than likely giving more attention to the urgent issues of profits and productivity. During times when budgets are cut and workforces are downsized, leaders must deal with their own broken psychological contracts.
 
3. Regardless of your position in the company, employee, supervisor, or manager, take stock of your own perspective of how expectations are and are not being met. Take time to look at the big picture by gaining understanding of how others are dealing with unmet expectations.
 
If you are an employee, what would happen if you sought out your manager or supervisor and asked him or her how things are going and what is frustrating about the current situation? You might be surprised that this person has some of the same feelings you have. Together you can come up with some ideas to reset your individual expectations and determine how you will positively respond.
 
We've seen this approach work in many organizations, large and small. When leaders and employees seek out each others' perspectives and seek to understand what is going on in the organization overall, ideas for improvement can be generated, no matter how dismal the situation may seem. Remember: the goal is for everyone to go home every day without an injury.

About the Author
©2010 Potter and Associates International, Inc. Carl Potter, CSP, CMC, and Deb Potter, PhD, CMC, work with organizations that want to create an environment where nobody gets hurt. As advocates of a zero-injury workplace, they are speakers, authors, and consultants to industry. As a general aviation pilot, Carl enjoys infusing aviation safety principles into his workplace programs. For more information, visit www.potterandassociates.com.

You might want to purchase a copy of Working Safely in A Changing Environment by Carl Potter, CSP for everyone on your team. It is available at www.safetybooks.com.