Viral Safety: Getting Buy-In Across the Board

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Most safety professionals can share stories of safety initiatives that were met with employee and management skepticism, or worse, just fell flat. This may have left them scratching their heads, wondering why what they thought was a can't-miss initiative didn't succeed.

In "Safety Gone Viral: How to Get Innovations Adopted" (March 2014, ASSE's Professional Safety), Dianne Stober advises EHS professionals to apply two principles from social science:

1. know where people relate to adopting change;
2. understand the characteristics of the innovation that will influence whether individuals will adopt or reject the change.

"People vary in how ready they are to adopt change," Stober explains. "When it comes to new initiatives or innovations within a group, individuals tend to fall into predictable categories of who adopts a change when." Citing sociologist Everett Rogers work on diffusion of innovation, Stober recommends that EHS professionals identify who in their workplaces fall into these five categories:

1. Innovators: The first people to adopt change.
2. Early adopters: Trendsetters who scan constantly for innovations and are willing to entertain new ideas.
3. Early majority: Like new ideas but need observable results to adopt a change.
4. Late majority: Less comfortable with new ideas, but typically join, somewhat reluctantly.
5. Laggards: Find change to be risky and uncomfortable.

"Being able to identify who is in what category can improve any safety professional's plan for getting a new initiative adopted," Stober says. She also provides a case example that offers readers a clear explanation of how an innovation can be move through the different groups of adopters to achieve the all-important critical mass that's needed to achieve organizational change.