September - 2019CONSTRUCTIONTECHREVIEW.COM9engagement survey or maybe even a safety specific survey once a year. They will load all the results into a database and trend them by site and by business. They then might ask the sites to look at data and create an action item list. This can be effective, but it can also be a blocker to getting the results needed to make decisions and subsequently take impactful action.Here is where the tech comes in. Instead of surveying culture once a year, at Amazon, we are asking our employees questions about safety culture through our Safety Leadership Index, every single day. We implemented this program to collect real-time feedback and insights from associates who know what it is like to work in a fulfillment center and what will make a difference - and we have been able to integrate this tech into our normal warehouse systems. An associate sees a question like, "Does your manager care about your safety?" pop up on their screen while working through their shift and then takes the time to respond using their standard technology tools. The second hardest part of culture is not determining what to do with the results, it is determining if what you are doing is working. How do you do this? Measure again. This is the innovation that I wish to share with you. Your actions may be well intentioned and well planned, but only your employees can tell you if they are working. To enable this continuous feedback loop of measure, act, adjust, measure, your cultural assessment must become an ongoing activity you are addressing daily ­ and then communicate back to the employee that you have moved their concerns into actions. If you can do this, you can watch the ebb and flow of adjustment; understand your managers who may need coaching, and your teams that are stressed. At Amazon, we have turned this into one of our vital EHS metrics, the Safety Leadership Index. We are measuring our teams' views on safety every week, which has enabled us to take that feeling in the air about a culture and turn it into a statistic representing how our associates are feeling not only about safety but general well-being and health in the workplace. In turn, we have action plans and updates on them integrated into nearly all of our weekly operations reviews. And the best part of this process is that there is not an end ­ it is that lesson in humility that teaches us we have to work to maintain this every day. Those human connections have to be sincere and happen regularly; culture cannot be solved and it cannot be bought in a store, but I think you can find a way to start to measure it and act to improve engagement at your workplace. If you try something like this, let me know how it goes, I would love to know what you have learned. We know that, and I am sure you can visit a workplace and just sense the culture and whether it is working. But what we are still struggling to do is measure it.
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