Compliance – Accountability or Choice?

Fact: Many workers have an unhealthy relationship with the policies, procedures, checklists, forms and permits designed to keep them safe.

Fact: Whilst workers are accountable to comply with those system expectations employers are not entitled to jump to the conclusion that workers actually will.

(Note: Accountability and Responsibility are interchangeable for the sake of this article.)

Why is it such a struggle?
I believe the term “accountability” has a bad name and is quite often associated with consequences not ownership. It has connotations of, “doing what you are told (or else)”. This is a shaky foundation upon which to generate real buy-in, isn’t it?

Workers do not want to escape accountability, but do not want it imposed. The truth is, workers can and always will exercise choice.

What can we do to re-frame the relationship?
For real engagement and the highest possible standards of system compliance, the workers’ relationship with your paperwork must be re-framed from “you have to do this” to “I choose to do this.” To approach this problem any other way is really doomed for failure. (Failure might look like 60-70% actual compliance.) This is because employers cannot control workers thinking and subsequent actions – only influence them.

So, if we can steer from corporate imposition to ownership and choice, we stand a chance.

After all, at the end of the day the only accountability that exists is self-accountability.

So, a good question to at-risk workers might be, “In the real world conditions of your job, if it was completely up to you, how would you choose to do it?”

I think if there were more conversations along these lines, and employers meaningfully responded to the answers, real compliance would be enhanced with all of its associated benefits.

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Written by Bruce Whitehead