Make sure all voices are heard.
Having your workers engaged, participating, and represented in the workplace is not just preferred—it’s legislated!
In the Health and Safety at Work (Worker Engagement, Participation, and Representation) Regulations 2016, it is laid out that a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) is duty bound to regularly communicate about health and safety with its workers—including specific issues in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. There are special requirements in place for certain hazardous industries.
To include your workers and allow them to be heard in your business is beneficial in many ways and in many areas beyond just health and safety. Engagement is a driver of success; find out why and how you can achieve better outcomes.
Why is it important to engage your workers?
We’ve talked about the many and varied benefits of an engaged workforce on our blog before. There are many reasons to prioritise getting your people involved:
- Reducing turnover. Recent Gallup numbers indicate that high-turnover highly engaged businesses show an 18% difference in turnover, while typically low-turnover businesses show a 43% difference when highly engaged. Turnover can be costly, particularly in sectors where a lot of training is required.
- Presence and productivity. The report also showed an 81% decrease in absenteeism and 14% improvement in productivity with high engagement.
- Safety. Engaged workers are more focused on safe practices and more committed to following and refining them. It’s been made clear many times over that involving workers in risk identification and management improves outcomes. This WorkSafe case study demonstrates that well.
- Happier people and a better culture. Happiness and engagement go hand in hand, creating a positive environment and better outcomes on a variety of metrics.
While WEPR refers solely to the Health and Safety arena, engagement is beneficial in all areas of your operations. Without an intentional effort to engage your people in their work, you are risking burnout, turnover, and reduced productivity and profitability.
Applying WEPR in your workplace
To make it easy for businesses to implement the WEPR regulations in their operations, WorkSafe has created resources like these good practice guidelines. These may be used by health and safety inspectors as part of their audits, so any business owner, director, or manager should be familiar with the latest version. It lays out that a company can demonstrate engagement in health and safety by:
- Having processes in place to involve workers and worker representatives in work health and safety.
- Giving workers opportunities to contribute to the decision-making process relating to a health and safety matter.
- Encouraging workers to have a say.
- Listening to and considering what workers and their representatives say and taking these views into account when decisions are being made.
- Updating workers and their representatives about what decisions have been made.
Additionally, health and safety committees are an established way to ensure worker representation in decision-making. After recent changes, the law states that any company must initiate an election for a health and safety representative if asked by any employee, and if a representative or five or more workers ask for a committee, the business must establish one.
Practical ways to engage your workforce
Ben and Emma, our co-founding dynamic duo, recently travelled to Turkiye for a holiday and saw some things which got them thinking about how engagement is achieved organically in other countries and cultures. One of these was the habit of gathering for a morning coffee to ease into the day. This may be a cultural practice rather than a corporate one, but it’s something that could be incorporated into your company culture as a regular and low-pressure point of connection. Could you as a manager buy your team coffee one or two mornings a week for a low-key gathering in which you discuss wins, challenges, and issues that have come up?
We loved the intricate tiled coffee tables so common in Turkiye. What if a coffee table—beautiful mosaic or just an old plastic one—could be a tool in your health and safety belt? Other practical ways to encourage engagement include:
- Survey people regularly, whether formally or informally. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. Make sure you’re doing it in a way that will provide honest feedback—that could mean keeping it to a casual chat or creating a fully anonymous survey.
- Allow time for natural interaction and conversation. Put on a BBQ or provide some other meal (during work hours, of course), and create opportunities for people to talk to each other.
- Organise team building events and activities—but think a little bit outside the box to ensure these aren’t the typical (fairly cringy) activities that have people calling in sick to avoid them. You want them to be enjoyable, to offer people plenty of opportunity to talk organically, and to present some kind of shared challenge that encourages interaction and teamwork. Take them off site and consider what your team members would enjoy. A physical challenge like creating a raft or an obstacle course? An escape room and meal afterwards? Make sure there’s a balance of prescripted activities to provide something to do but also plenty of downtime to relax and get to know each other.
- Incentivise participation in health and safety committees, but aim to do so without an outright bribe. Making it a paid position can backfire when the same person or people want to hang on to the position without allowing others a look in. Seek those who genuinely want to have a voice. Tie in PD opportunities or even qualifications, so that being on the committee is good for anyone seeking career progression away from the tools. Hold H&S meetings offsite at a cafe and buy coffees and treats to make it more enjoyable.
In all aspects of worker engagement, you need to find what works for the people involved. Emma remembers holding H&S meetings at one particular company on a Friday afternoon, allowing workers to put their tools down an hour early and sit around to chat and even have a beer as they discussed any issues that had come up this week. As long as they provided decent minutes, they could keep it casual and it felt like an easy start to the weekend.
TL;DR: Engage your workers for H&S
Engagement as a way to improve a variety of outcomes has been proven time and time again. When it comes to health and safety, it’s a legislated requirement. The Health and Safety at Work (Worker Engagement, Participation, and Representation) Regulations 2016 were created to ensure that people have a say in making sure their workplace is a safe environment.
In all areas of work, engaged employees are happier, more productive, and usually less likely to leave. All of this is good for your bottom line.
WEPR regulations and the associated good practice guidelines put out by WorkSafe lay out what is expected: having processes to involve workers and worker representatives in work health and safety; giving workers opportunities to contribute to the decision-making process; encouraging them to have a say; taking their views into account; and updating workers and reps on decisions made. Additionally, there is legislation around health and safety representation and committees which we have explained above.
There are many practical ways you can engage your people effectively. Here are a few ideas:
- Hold regular surveys, formal and informal, to ensure voices are being heard.
- Allow opportunities for natural conversation like shared meals (during work time).
- Organise team building, but think outside the box to make sure it’s not lame.
- Incentivise participation in H&S committees with PD, off-site meetings, and more.
Expert help is available
Not sure how to design and implement engagement strategies for your unique business? The Emendas team can help! With our facts-and-feelings duo at the helm, we’re well-equipped to provide expert assistance.
Team profiling is a great place to start, offering insight into your individuals and teams and how you can best support and engage them. Our Scorecard Assessment can uncover gaps that need filling, whether in health and safety or other aspects of compliance. And we can provide ongoing guidance and direction with advisory board services, partnership plans, management resources, and workshops.