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Employee Involvement 55

Employee involvement in the operation of the program and in deci-
sions that affect safety and health.
Assignment of responsibilities for all aspects of the program, so that
managers, supervisors, and employees in all parts of the organization
know what performance is expected of them.
Provision of adequate authority and resources to responsible parties,
so that assigned responsibilities can be met.
Holding managers, supervisors, and employees accountable for
meeting their responsibilities, so that essential tasks will be per-
formed.
Annual reviews to evaluate success in meeting goals and objectives,
so that deficiencies can be identified and the program and/or the ob-
jectives can be revised as needed. 7

Leveraging the Power of
Employee Involvement

The typical organization is blessed with talented individuals waiting for
the perceptive manager to provide an opportunity congruent with their per-
sonal strengths and interests. It is an eye-opening exercise to inventory the
leadership roles assumed outside the workplace by an organization’s clerks,
plant operators, maintenance mechanics, and technicians. Church officers,
school board members, United Way leaders, small business owners, effec-
tive managers of substantial monetary investments—the workplace is filled
with individuals having the initiative, skills, and intelligence to make mean-
ingful contributions in the workplace.
Figures 5-1 through 5-3 summarize results of survey responses on the
subject of employee involvement from America’s largest employers. 8
Results of the comprehensive survey, conducted by the U.S. General
Accounting Office, confirm the power of employee involvement in helping
to achieve and sustain results. Of the 934 companies surveyed, 76 percent
report that employee involvement has improved organizational processes
and procedures. Thus, if we manage the prevention of high-consequence in-
cidents as a business process, we can expect favorable results from actively
involving employees.
In 1994, the world followed 50th anniversary proceedings for the June
6, 1944, D-Day landings with great interest. Frank Elliot, a U.S. Army cor-
poral with the 741st Tank Battalion, was one of the many heroic casualties
of the initial landings. As part of the events leading up to the D-Day