Workplace Wellness and Safety

Motivation Versus Mandates   

Managers and team leaders can approach their employees in two ways when it comes to wellness and safety: They can rely on mandating or they can start motivating. Guess which one works better?

While employers who mandate rules from the top down often achieve their goals, it’s not without significant costs. Despite well-intended top-down communications, giving mandates about safety and health can create an environment that seems controlling and underhanded to employees. Unfortunately, they may react by feeling insecure, negative and less motivated.

On the other hand, when leaders use an encouraging motivation style to increase employee commitment to wellness and safety programs, employees most often respond in a more positive manner. While no one person can actually motivate another person (people have to motivate themselves), you can create a motivational environment.

Motivating Without Mandating

• Ask for suggestions. Employee buy-in is a lot more likely when employers honor and recognize their employees’ suggestions and contributions. Understanding what your employees want is the best way to understand what motivates them. (Surprise! It’s not always money.)
• Cultivate a cohesive environment. Encourage employees to work together by reporting hazards, by engaging in healthy habits and by exercising . For example, start a lunch and walk program or work with doctors to set up a weight loss program (with incentives) for employee teams.
• Use an emotional appeal to demonstrate a rational case. Employers need to present the facts, but also the benefits. Simply stating that 65 percent of Americans are overweight doesn’t motivate anyone to lose weight, but saying, “Stay healthy so you can be there for your children when they need you,” gets the point across in an emotional and convincing way. Align your safety goals with your employees’ goals.
• Be a leader. Understand what motivates you to stay safe and lead by example.

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