The Voluntary Protection Program Participants Association’s Safety+ Conference last week in New Orleans was another fine EHS event put on by the organization. I love this conference because the attendees are “all in” when it comes to safety. I spoke with folks from some of America’s finest industrial organizations about their passion for safety and OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program.

I was also privileged to speak at the conference. My topic was: Job Satisfaction, the Secret Ingredient for Exceptional Employee Involvement. In it I integrated some excellent historical academic work on the subject into the modern context of achieving safety excellent through employee involved methods. I was fortunate to have a large audience of interactive safety professionals who added to the discussion of the subject. Thanks to all who attended! For others with interest, you can download a PDF of my presentation here.

Job satisfaction is a key ingredient in safe workplaces, and we have forgotten that in our rush to more efficient jobs.

Louise Escola is a reporter from Business Insurance Magazine who was in the audience. Below is her article on my topic. She does a great job of identifying my main point: job satisfaction is a key ingredient in safe workplaces, and we have forgotten that in our rush to more efficient jobs.

I also urge you to take a look at the seminal research I drew the concepts from: Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the job diagnostic survey. Journal of Applied psychology, 60(2), 159. This is still one of the most authoritative works on the subject.

I hope you find this line of thought as interesting as I do. I submit that this is an important area of study to be included in NIOSH’s groundbreaking Total Worker Health initiative. Let’s put the human back in our workplaces!