Foot in the door for health and safety commitment

In my last post, I wrote about the idea that commitment of senior management is viewed as the most important determinant of success in health and safety. How does commitment to a principle develop? Are there degrees of commitment? What can health and safety professionals do to encourage such commitment?

The realms of social marketing and psychology may provide some ideas. Robert Cialdini, a well-known popularizer of psychological research on influence, writes about the importance of commitment and consistency in behavior change. He points out that people want to be consistent – if they make an initial small commitment, they will tend to follow that with greater commitment and more profound behavior change in line with that commitment. This is the principle behind a well-know social science phenomenon known as “foot in the door”, used widely by people in sales and marketing. It is also easily discovered by children, which perhaps you have learned as a parent (often phrased as “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”.)

One of the first social science experiments to demonstrate this concept involved asking people to put a big ugly sign on their lawns promoting automobile safety. According to Cialdini, only 17% of the general study population agreed. However, another group had been asked previously if they would put a small sign in their windows. As this was a relatively minor request, a large number agreed. Among those who agreed to the small sign, 76% subsequently agreed to put the large sign on their lawns. Cialdini attributes this willingness to the influence of peoples’ desire for a consistent self-image – after their initial small commitment shapes their self-view, they will want to affirm it through subsequent, even escalating, actions along the same lines.

Google “foot in the door” and you will find hundreds of studies of this phenomenon. Has it been applied to workplace health and safety? Not very widely, though it has been discussed with respect to eliciting behavior change from employees. ( See Herbout, et al. and Geller.) Here I am more interested in influencing management commitment, and in this regard, I am reminded of a few initiatives based on getting employers to sign a charter or pledge of commitment to health and safety. One example is the CEO Health and Safety Leadership Charter, an initiative of the Conference Board of Canada. Although not explicitly conceived of as a “foot in the door” technique, this program should theoretically promote health and safety in workplaces even if the initial commitment is minimal. After all, signing a document does not by itself change health and safety conditions. Some believe that programs like this should set a high bar for companies who sign the charter: that the charter should only be available to those who have proven their commitment through actions. “Foot in the door” theory suggests to me that it is of value to get the initial commitment regardless of the current state of health and safety in the company, and use this as a foundation on which to build ever-growing commitment.

In fact, the charter seems rather a high bar for an initial step. For a large firm, a public declaration entails a big risk of damage to reputation if the commitment is not demonstrated. It would be interesting if even smaller “baby steps” could be offered to start the process. Health and safety professionals may be in a good position to encourage executives to take the initial pledge and start down the road. They can then help them in taking larger steps in an incremental manner that does not seem overwhelming. I’d be interested to know of any experiences out there using techniques of this kind.