Making the Safety Connection: The Impact of Total Well-Being in the Workplace

Utility workers perform essential tasks that touch millions of lives every day. The critical nature of the services they provide coupled with the perilous nature of their tasks exposes these workers to life-threatening hazards. This is why the industry highly values and prioritizes safety.

Many utility companies operating today have made significant strides in improving their safety culture. Critical risk management programs and a human performance mindset have become increasingly common as organizational leaders more fully understand the link between human behavior and risk. These companies have moved beyond the traditional safety model that primarily focuses on accident prevention, opting instead to embrace risk reduction strategies.

Use of tools like the energy wheel and the hierarchy of controls continues to help leaders shift their focus from lagging indicators (e.g., injury rates) to leading indicators, enabling them to better predict and prevent potential harm. This proactive approach has become a hallmark of forward-thinking safety strategies – but there’s still more to be done.

Individual well-being is one topic that industry organizations don’t always include when developing safety programs, in part because not everyone understands what it is. “Wellness” often conjures thoughts of a person’s physical state, a definition that fails to capture the complex, multidimensional nature of well-being and the ways it directly impacts safety outcomes. When we talk about worker safety, we must consider the entire individual, which includes their physical, mental, emotional and social well-being.

Shifting From Process to People
Workplace safety is often framed as a process. We first design programs and policies, and then we train people. But when it comes to safety, people should be the starting point – so we must do a better job of starting with them. As safety professionals and leaders, we have an obligation to study and understand the human factors that influence how our workers show up each day.

Imagine that you’re preparing to deliver an important presentation to the president of your company. You’ve spent weeks perfecting your slides, rehearsing answers to difficult questions and preparing yourself for a successful delivery. But when the morning of the presentation arrives, you’ve barely slept, you’re dealing with relationship stress, you haven’t had time to eat, and you’re feeling mentally overwhelmed. Now ask yourself, how will these factors impact your presentation to the company president? Do you think you’ll be able to perform at your best?

The situation is no different for our frontline workers. They show up to work as multifaceted people, more than just skilled operators or safety-conscious team members. When they are struggling with personal challenges, sleep deprivation or other types of stress, that stress can directly affect their ability to successfully complete safety-sensitive tasks.

Total Well-Being: A Safety Essential
This brings us to the crux of the issue: Total well-being is not a luxury in the workplace – it is a necessity. Today more than ever, the utility industry workforce is multigenerational, with varied needs, experiences and expectations. Older workers may require support for physical conditions, while younger workers may demand greater attention be given to their mental health and work-life balance. The simple fact that numerous generations with differing values are working side by side creates its own bucket of needs for people of all ages. Honestly tell me you aren’t struggling with this, and I’ll buy you a coffee. We must alter our approach to workplace well-being to support the needs of a truly diverse workforce.

Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of needs provides a helpful framework to understand how workplace well-being affects safety. Typically depicted as a pyramid, the hierarchy illustrates our needs as humans. The bottom two levels of the pyramid represent physiological and safety needs. As an industry, we’ve made great strides in meeting these needs through physical safety programs, equipment and policies – but those items only address survival. If we want our workers to truly thrive, we must look beyond the basics to support them in ways that promote overall flourishing.

Here’s a phrase that irks me nearly every time I hear or read it: “We want everyone to go home the same way they came to work.” I understand the intent, but given that the average American spends tens of thousands of hours at work during their lifetime, can’t we find ways to invest in employees so that we send them home even better than when they arrived?

Once reserved for large corporations with deep pockets, today’s comprehensive workplace wellness programs successfully address physical, mental, emotional, occupational, financial, social, environmental and spiritual aspects of workers’ lives – and they don’t require organizations to invest millions of dollars.

However, to ensure maximum program effectiveness, organizational leaders must fully understand the intrinsic link between well-being and safety. A worker’s physical health can directly affect that individual’s ability to perform safety-critical tasks; the same is true of their mental and emotional health. Employees who feel mentally and emotionally supported in the work environment typically experience greater engagement in their tasks, improved focus and a lower risk of making poor decisions. Leaders who recognize the direct connection between safety and wellness can use that knowledge to improve and expand their programs, further enhancing workplace safety and efficiency.

Recognizing Hidden Hazards
Sleep deprivation, mental health challenges and poor nutrition are among the most common – and often invisible – hazards workers bring with them to the jobsite. Research has repeatedly shown that sleep-deprived workers are more prone to judgment errors, impaired memory and delayed reaction times. Similarly, workers who are mentally stressed or emotionally drained are likelier to engage in risky behavior and make unsafe decisions. These are not minor issues, particularly in high-risk environments. The effects of these hazards can be catastrophic.

Consider the highly skilled and experienced employee who had a difficult night at home and skipped breakfast because he was running late for his shift. Although he was a talented safety leader, no human is fully exempt from the effects of sleep deprivation, emotional stress and hunger. This worker’s less-than-ideal state of being contributed to a poor decision-making moment during his shift that resulted in serious personal injury as well as equipment damage, demonstrating once again that individual well-being directly impacts job performance and personal safety.

Holistic Risk Reduction
The good news is that utility organizations can significantly reduce their safety risks by focusing on the total well-being of their workers. This requires leaders to consider how physical, emotional, mental and social factors contribute to overall wellness.

Here’s even better news: Employers don’t need to immediately overhaul their safety programs to improve employee well-being; smaller changes can be made over time. For instance, an employer could integrate well-being topics and exercises into safety training sessions, providing workers with resources to help them manage stress, improve their sleep and address nutritional needs.

Leaders who support workers in all areas of well-being help to improve their quality of life, job performance and personal safety. We must be intentional about providing these resources and creating workplaces in which all employees can thrive.

Conclusion
Total worker well-being isn’t a passing trend – it’s a critical component of workplace safety that significantly impacts organizational performance. When we invest in the holistic wellness of our workforce, we help to lower incident risks while also fostering an environment in which people can innovate and perform at their highest level.

For those readers interested in learning more about the practical application of the information presented here, I’m currently writing a follow-up article – to be published in Incident Prevention later this year – about additional steps organizations can take to improve total worker well-being. Stay tuned for more.

About the Author: Summer Rae is a speaker and culture coach with more than a decade of experience developing and implementing comprehensive safety strategies. She specializes in transforming safety culture using a people-first approach. Native to Mississippi, Summer Rae currently resides in Costa Rica. Reach her at summerrae2024@gmail.com or via WhatsApp at +1-228-297-7447.