Moving beyond fear-based messaging and focusing on discovery, participation and personal value can help safety leaders create more meaningful learning experiences.

“Joy” and “safety” are two words that aren’t often spoken together. Safety is more commonly paired with words such as “crucial,” “essential,” “protective,” “obligated” and “defensive.” But joy?

Leaders looking for better ways to encourage changes in beliefs and actions would be wise to consider the connection between positive emotions and learning. Neuroscience research has associated learning and change with reactions such as excitement, personal interest and discovery. Neurologist Dr. Judy Willis has written that positive emotions can affect brain chemistry by releasing dopamine, lowering stress and supporting learning and memory.

Yet in many organizations, fear of negative consequences remains an entrenched way of motivating safety. Threats, punishment and “holding people accountable” can shape not only how safety expectations are communicated but also how workers are treated after incidents.

The results can be limited over the long term. As John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, “Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.”

In safety, that can appear as workers following the strict letter of a procedure without embracing its purpose. An employee might perform a prescribed lockout, for example, but fail to mention an unusually sticky valve because reporting it wasn’t specifically required.

Fear can also discourage workers from reporting near misses, sharing potentially valuable information during incident investigations or volunteering for safety roles.

Safety communications also frequently rely on the promise of preventing something bad from happening. Workers are told to follow procedures so they don’t get injured or so they can “go home the same way they came in.” That message can be hard to sustain, especially when workers don’t believe an incident will happen to them or when production pressures seem to conflict with safety expectations.

There is another approach: Find ways to bring some enjoyment, discovery and personal satisfaction into safety.

For people to embrace something new and ultimately change their decisions and actions, it helps when they receive some form of positive internal validation from the experience. Former maritime company CEO and ASSP board member Anil Mathur put it another way: “Leaders have to light up the brains of the workforce!”

This article originally appeared in the October 2026 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.

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