How much does the success of your business depend on employee attitudes? More importantly, how do you shape employee attitudes so that they directly benefit your business? For most businesses, this is a crucial question. When it comes to employee attitudes about safety, the answer can truly mean life or death.
The desire to improve safety performance at its manufacturing facilities led one of the world’s largest food companies to conduct meetings at each of its facilities to change employee attitudes about safety.
That sounds like a tall order. To tackle the challenge, the organization conducted a series of meetings at its various locations in which program leaders laid the groundwork for the change. The leaders asked participants to answer a set of questions to determine their attitudes about safety and the effectiveness of the safety meetings — and they wanted honest feedback. To make sure participants answered the questions truthfully, the leaders used an OptionPower wireless audience response system in which participants could anonymously enter their answers.
Starting with where you sit
The goal of each meeting was to create a safer work environment by changing safety attitudes and perceptions. During the meeting, facilitators placed three chairs at the front of the room. The leaders told participants that the chairs represented "where people sit" with respect to their attitudes about workplace safety:
- Chair 1: We need to be relentless about safety. It is ingrained in everything we do.
- Chair 2: Safety is important but it can sometimes conflict with key performance goals.
- Chair 3: Accidents happen. There is a gap between what we say and what we do.
Participants anonymously entered the number of their "attitude chair" into a wireless OptionFinder keypad. Employees then participated in a six-hour safety program. At the end of the program, participants were again asked to enter their attitude number.
Meeting leaders hoped to raise the percentage of employees that held a “Chair 1” attitude and to empower employees with a greater willingness to work with others to create a safer work environment.
Evaluating effectiveness
Meeting facilitators also used the audience response system to assess the effectiveness of the meetings. Employees entered answers to the following questions:
- Are the objectives of the meeting clear to you?
- Did the presenters know the materials?
- Did you find the interaction and hands-on participation helpful?
- Can you apply what you're learning to your current job?
- Overall, did the meeting meet your expectations?
Participants used a three-point scale to record their answers:
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- Definitely
Measuring results
The data collected during and after the meetings helped meeting leaders determine that the meetings were quite successful at changing employee attitudes about safety.
Between the beginning of the meeting and the end, 15.2 percent of participants changed their attitude from a chair 2 to a chair 1. Following the meeting, more than 70 percent felt that the company should be “relentless” about safety.
From the meeting evaluation questions, leaders learned that most employees thought the meetings were helpful, well-presented and that they would be able to apply the information in their daily jobs.
Privacy key to honest answers
In this case, the organization’s choice of the OptionPower interactive audience response system was crucial to the success of the meeting.
First, the participants liked using the technology. The interactive format and the wireless OptionFinder keypads for responding meant that the audience was engaged during the extensive meeting.
Second, without the use of audience response technology, it would have been much more difficult for meeting leaders to gauge the effectiveness of the safety presentations. With the real-time results, organizers could immediately see how respondents reacted to and retained information. And, organizers could get instant feedback during the meeting about whether the instruction was working.
But perhaps the most important factor in this case was the use of the keypads themselves. The wireless keypads were a critical factor in the success of the meetings because they guaranteed participant anonymity. And to further ensure that answers were completely anonymous, participants exchanged their OptionFinder keypads with other participants twice during the meeting.
Participants knew they were coming into a meeting with an agenda. And they could tell that the company must believe safety is a high priority. But they also knew they could be honest because no one would be able to identify their individual answers. The guarantee of privacy enabled the organization to make effective use of the group’s collective intelligence to inform the presentation.
The company was also able to extend the value gained from these meetings. Using the data and input they received from OptionPower, managers could constructively follow up, implementing organizational changes and following up with employees to ensure that behavioral changes continued.
