In a recent email post, someone mentioned that the cost to businesses of disengaged employees is about $350 billion per year.
In another post, it was estimated that about 20% of the employees are actively disengaged; they aren’t just standing around but rather doing things like horseplay, game-playing-sabotage, and even bullying to drag the performance of the organization down. This is not only a huge loss to the business, but also a huge personal loss to these people who are so negative.
These people cause big problems by blocking the channels of communications that are so critical.
People are often reluctant to speak up in these negative environments. Ideas for improvement never surface. New employees are negatively influenced and led astray. Supervisors have a very rough time getting the people to do their work properly. Grievance rates are high and much time is wasted needlessly because these are not addressed at an early stage.
In many organizations, new employees are given a safety orientation and then go to work. The organization depends on the more senior people providing some guidance to these new people. Where there is active disengagement, this follow-up guidance is often not done so the new people try their best, but are often hurt. During the summer months this is especially serious because summer and other temporary employees are hired. These people need a lot of help, but where there is active disengagement, little help is offered and drift from business focus occurs.
When the flow of communications is blocked, the organization can easily drift into disaster. Critical information gets lost. The managers who need the feedback about how the operations are running do not get the information they need. Flying blind is not good!
In your own organizations, if you see disengaged people, begin to talk with them, share important information and ask for their help. This may be hard at first, but over time, most of these people will become more engaged. One reason that people become disengaged is because they feel ignored and under-valued.
By talking together, listening for ideas, exploring for improvements from everyone, a lot of disengaged people will begin to get involved. This is not just a one-time activity. Talking, listening, exploring together are ongoing parts of the work that pay big dividends. As leaders in your organization, you can open things up for the better.
For most managers putting production first can be quite subtle with messages like:
Partner-Centered Safety is a robust, proven way to bring people together to achieve sustainable levels of safety excellence being based on deeply held beliefs and values.
Things do not have to be this way! Most of the people know that this is counter-productive but that is the way it is. However, when we engage the people from across the organization in the Complexity Leadership Process, guiding them in a purposeful conversation of discovery that changes everything, they find it does not have to be that way!
Most of us working in safety have been brought up to see organizations as if they are machine-like. This thinking goes all the way back to Descartes (1596-1650) and Newton (1642-1727). We use reductionist approaches to try to understand them. We seek cause/effect relationships. We use linear processes for training and the like, prescribing answers and doing things TO the people. We work on this part or that part trying to fix the whole thing. 
The first part of this work is sharing all information and talking together about it. Another part is building trust and interdependence with the people as we openly discuss what is happening, what we are doing and why. The third part of this work is helping people to see the big picture and how important their part is to the success of the whole business.
Lots of critical knowledge, experience and skills will be lost. Younger people, who have grown up in an electronic world of texting and games, will replace these people. Many are out of shape and bordering on being over weight; some are developing diabetes. This will pose significant challenges to employers and the need to work safely and well.
Most of the safety people I’ve come to know approach organizations as if they are mechanical things to manipulate. Organizations are structured in functions. Knowledge is structured in pieces. People are narrowly skilled. Motivation is based on external factors. Information is shared on a need to know basis. Change is a troubling problem. People work in prescribed roles seeing only their part of the work. If change is needed people are moved around like chairs. Training is provided in abundance. Safety programs are set up as step-by-step processes where things are arranged in a prescribed sequence. 
