Managers find themselves juggling endless priorities. Production deadlines. Employee engagement. Customer satisfaction. And always at the top of that list: Safety. Given that Perceptyx research finds 1 in 4 managers are "flat out miserable" in their roles, adding yet another responsibility feels counterproductive.
But here’s what the data from our Center for Workforce Transformation tells us: Managers who prioritize safety don't just prevent accidents. In fact, Perceptyx’s Benchmark data finds that highly engaged employees are 1.2x as likely as their less engaged counterparts to report that safety is a priority for their manager. This isn't about adding items to an already packed schedule. It's about weaving safety into daily management practices in ways that actually make the job easier, not harder.
Most organizations rely on policies, procedures, and annual training. While these elements matter, they miss something fundamental: safety isn't achieved through declaration. It's built through daily practice and cultural expectations that are upheld by each team and employee.
Consider what happens with many recognition programs. Organizations celebrate "365 days without an incident" or reward departments for perfect safety records. Seems logical, right? Look closer and you'll find, as Amy Edmondson did in Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, that these kinds of programs can often drive problems underground.
When employees must choose between reporting a near-miss and preserving their team's spotless record (and bonus), human nature wins. The result? False confidence is built on incomplete data. One healthcare manager described how their department's "perfect" safety record concealed numerous unreported incidents until a serious injury exposed the truth. A risk factor that warrants notice in employee feedback is when high ratings on safety metrics are coupled with very low ratings on statements regarding the employee’s likelihood of recommending the organization to friends or family.
This is where effective managers make the difference. They understand that physical safety and psychological safety are inseparable. When employees fear blame, criticism, or career damage for speaking up about safety concerns, hazards multiply in silence.
Research confirms that great managers need great managers themselves. This cascading effect of leadership proves especially vital in safety culture, where one manager's approach can determine whether teams prevent problems or simply react to disasters.
The connection between safety and broader organizational health runs deep. During the pandemic, our research found that employees who felt supported by their managers in health decisions were almost twice as likely to believe senior leadership was effectively leading through the crisis. That same dynamic applies to everyday safety management.
Transformational managers experiment with the best ways to recognize safety achievements. Instead of celebrating incident-free streaks, many choose to highlight learning and improvement. Compare these approaches:
Traditional recognition: "Congratulations to the pharmacy team for 180 days without a safety incident!"
Progressive recognition: "Recognition goes to Joe from our pharmacy team. During last week's system outage, Joe noticed a prescription that could have caused an adverse reaction due to a patient's allergy. By taking extra time to verify the patient's medical history despite the technical challenges, Joe prevented a potential safety event. This shows how each of us can contribute to patient safety by staying vigilant, especially during disruptions."
The second approach:
This aligns with best practices outlined in Perceptyx's Safety Culture Guidebook that warn against rewarding employees based on an absence of incidents, as it can unintentionally encourage underreporting.
One powerful tool costs nothing and takes minimal time: the safety check-in. By incorporating safety discussions into regular one-on-ones and team meetings, managers keep safety present without creating separate processes.
Effective safety questions for one-on-ones might include:
The phrasing matters. Asking about "concerns" or "improvements" rather than "safety incidents" invites broader thinking. An administrative assistant might not connect parking lot lighting or a sticky door with "safety issues," but these problems can escalate.
Persistence pays off. When managers ask consistently, employees learn to actively observe. They arrive prepared with observations and suggestions, transforming from passive followers to active partners. This approach mirrors successful strategies used by organizations like MetroHealth, which revolutionized their safety culture through creative and consistent employee listening.
Teams at MetroHealth and other Perceptyx customers have used collaborative technology to co-create and prioritize real solutions together, allowing employees to submit safety ideas and vote on which actions matter most. Our research has found that for organizations incorporating a crowdsourced method of listening, action taking climbs to 74%, with nearly 3 in 4 employees seeing improvements based on the crowdsourced listening feedback. By empowering employees to identify and prioritize safety solutions, managers can harness their team's collective wisdom to address challenges in real-time while building the trust and accountability essential for lasting safety culture transformation.
Numbers and policies rarely change behavior. Stories do. Forward-thinking managers know how to harness the power of narrative to build safety culture. These aren't scare tactics but learning opportunities that show how easily things go wrong and how vigilance prevents tragedy.
Take the Duke University incident where hydraulic fluid contaminated surgical instruments. An environmental services worker caught it because the cleaning agent "seemed off." A willingness to speak up, combined with a culture that takes such concerns seriously, can catch near misses or, when misses do occur (as was the case at Duke), prevent catastrophe.
When managers share stories from news media, industry publications, or personal experience, they:
Some healthcare organizations that are leading the way in safety culture emphasize a storytelling approach, particularly when addressing psychological safety alongside physical safety concerns.
Healthcare and manufacturing have pioneered High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles that any manager can adapt:
These principles prove especially effective when combined with modern listening approaches. Perceptyx's Leapfrog-approved Safety Culture Survey demonstrates how brief, targeted assessments can drive meaningful improvements without disrupting critical work.
"We don't know what we don't know" represents a fundamental safety truth. Homogeneous teams share blind spots. Research on inclusive leadership shows that diverse teams identify more risks and generate better solutions.
In this case, diversity can be represented by:
When piloting safety procedures, managers assembling diverse review teams consistently catch more issues. Night-shift nurses see different risks than day administrators. New employees question what veterans assume.
Our previous two Healthcare Employee Experience reports highlighted how organizations prioritizing both safety and inclusion saw stronger improvements in speak-up culture and overall safety metrics.
Effective safety cultures don't rely on annual training. They embed safety into daily rhythms through "safety moments" that keep safety present without becoming burdensome.
Examples include:
These practices leverage recency bias. When safety discussions happen frequently, employees naturally become more safety-aware in their daily work. But forward-thinking managers are taking this a step further by implementing features like Intelligent Nudges — bite-sized, behavioral science-backed prompts delivered directly within daily workflows that help build lasting safety habits.
Unlike generic reminders, these nudges apply Nobel Prize-winning behavioral science to inspire specific safety behaviors at exactly the right moments. A nurse might receive a contextual prompt about hand hygiene protocols when accessing patient records, or a maintenance worker could get a targeted reminder about equipment checks when clocking in for their shift. With Perceptyx’s Activate for Healthcare and its more than 450 healthcare-specific safety nudges developed in collaboration with behavioral scientists and Chief Nursing Officers, these interventions go beyond awareness to actively shape behavior.
The power lies in their systematic approach to habit formation. Rather than relying on willpower or memory, intelligent nudges create behavioral triggers that gradually become automatic responses. Organizations that use this approach consistently see engagement rates exceeding 70%, with managers able to track real-time progress as leading indicators of safety culture improve. By embedding these science-based prompts into the flow of work, managers transform sporadic safety moments into sustained behavioral change that genuinely reduces incidents and builds a culture where safety becomes second nature.
The most important shift managers must make involves going from safety enforcer to learning facilitator.
As mentioned above, research on crowdsourcing for safety improvement consistently shows that when employees co-create safety solutions, engagement and compliance increase dramatically.
For overwhelmed managers, these approaches might still feel burdensome. The key is integration, not addition. Safety discussions can replace other agenda items. Safety moments can substitute for meeting openers. Recognition programs shift focus rather than expand.
Investment in safety culture pays dividends through reduced incidents, lower turnover, higher engagement, and improved productivity. Employees who feel safe perform better, collaborate more effectively, and stay longer.
Organizations seeing the strongest safety improvements often discover unexpected benefits. UC San Diego Health's "Safe to Speak" initiative, recognized in Perceptyx's 2024 EX Impact Awards, found that improving psychological safety enhanced not just safety metrics but overall team cohesion and patient satisfaction.
Building a strong safety culture doesn't happen overnight, but every manager can start immediately with some simple steps:
Remember, you're not implementing a program. You're shifting a culture. And culture changes one conversation, one decision, one day at a time.
Download Perceptyx's Safety Culture Guidebook for comprehensive strategies and proven frameworks. To see how leading organizations are using employee feedback to build stronger safety cultures, schedule a demo with our team.
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