Why A Strong Safety Culture Leads To Higher Employee Retention

Nowadays, turnover rates are higher than they were a decade ago, and any wise organization is constantly searching for ways to improve employee retention. Having to train a new employee takes time and money, and it is usually some time after training that the employee leads to increased revenue or productivity. During the training stage, work slows down to get the new hire up to speed, which means the only way to keep work moving forward is to keep employees long-term and invest in their growth.

How do we do this? Many employers attribute retention to money, considering employee decisions to be extrinsically motivated. However, in a 2024 survey, Team Stage found that 74% of employees would accept lower pay if given a chance to work at their dream jobs. Many employees also stated they would be more likely to leave their current place of work if they saw colleagues do the same. This shows that leaving one’s job is often more about intrinsic motivations. Giving employees lots of money and benefits is great, but if your workplace culture is negative, leading to undesirable working conditions, money won’t be enough to make people stay.

People stay where they feel safe, supported, and valued, which means the best way to drive employee retention is through fostering a culture of safety in your organization. A safety culture means that leadership, managers, and workers all take responsibility for keeping each other safe. It’s not just about avoiding accidents. It’s about creating an environment where people feel respected, heard, and cared for. Studies show that these are the things people care about most when it comes to deciding where to work.

Let’s take a closer look at how a strong safety culture leads to higher employee retention.

Safety culture is not about procedures or meeting legal requirements, but rather, it’s the shared values, beliefs, and actions that show employees that safety truly matters to the organization. In a strong safety culture:

• Leaders model safe behavior and talk openly about safety
• Coworkers watch out for one another
• Near misses and concerns are reported without fear
• Mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn, not punish

You can see a safety culture in action through daily habits, team meetings, and how supervisors respond to problems. It’s about accountability, care, and people knowing they’re not just numbers—they’re human beings whose well-being matters. When a company builds this kind of culture, workers notice. All people want to feel safe at their place of work, and the best way to ensure safety is to make it a part of workplace culture.

When we talk about safety culture, we’re not only talking about physical safety. Psychological safety also plays a major role in the wellbeing of the workforce. This type of safety means employees feel comfortable speaking up, whether they’re pointing out a hazard, admitting a mistake, or offering an idea for improvement.

Psychological safety builds trust. A 2022 study by Boston Consulting Group found that, for companies with low levels of psychological safety, 12% of employees said they were likely to quit within a year, while for companies with high levels, only 3% of employees were at risk of quitting. When workers know they won’t get punished or ignored for raising concerns, they’re more likely to stay engaged, and when they see leaders take those concerns seriously, it builds loyalty.

Think about it this way: if someone feels unsafe or unheard at work, why would they stay? But if they know their voice matters and their well-being is a priority, they’ll feel secure in their role and continue to perform. Research shows that psychological safety leads to higher job satisfaction, better teamwork, and lower turnover rates.

The incident rate in your organization is directly tied to the safety culture. No one wants to work in a place where they are constantly in fear of being injured. If injury and incident rates are high, people will choose to leave, believing that if they stay they will be the next person to get hurt. If your organization has a high incident rate, don’t be surprised when people start leaving en masse (or begin to sue you, depending on the nature of the incidents).

In order for people to feel safe and secure in a workplace, the workplace needs to be stable and predictable. To achieve this, organizations must ensure that there are very few workplace incidents, and that the ones that do come up are dealt with quickly. When incidents happen, they disrupt everything—schedules, teams, productivity, morale. Preventing workplace incidents keeps operations running smoothly, and people enjoy work a lot more when things are going well.

Safety training is a sign that a company cares. When companies take time to train their employees properly, it sends a powerful message: “Your well-being matters here.”

Safety training also opens the door to growth. Training allows workers to learn valuable skills, such as hazard recognition, problem-solving, and emergency response, and these skills build confidence and give people a greater sense of control over their environment. This feeling of control gives people motivation to stay, as people are naturally drawn to remain in stable environments they feel they have control over.

Showing you care about employee growth further adds to this motivation. All people want to feel like they are bettering themselves and contributing to something bigger than themselves. If you put into your employees, they will put into the organization. Remember that Team Stage report mentioned earlier? It found that motivated employees are 87% less likely to resign, yet only 33% of US employees claim they feel motivated at work. Where does this lack of motivation come from? Oftentimes, it is a feeling of stagnation—the idea that they will continue doing the same thing everyday without growth.

No one wants to feel like they are just following orders. People want to feel like they are involved in shaping their work environment. This is what empowers people to do their best. This sense of empowerment supports long-term retention. People don’t just want a job; they want to feel that they are a part of something meaningful.