Safety commitment is distinguished from safety compliance by one critical factor: clarity.
It's impossible for someone to be fully committed to something that isn't entirely clear to them. They might go along with it because their friends or coworkers are involved, but that is not commitment.
Think about a major purchase or project, such as a home renovation. No one will commit to something like that without seeing the plan, the materials list, the costs, and the timeframe. No walls are getting knocked down until all the questions are answered and the plan is clear.
To commit to a plan, a program, or an idea, a person needs to have all the facts. They need to understand not just what and how, but also why. Once the why has been explained, the what and the how become more relevant. And once someone has all the information, they are more likely to commit.
Is it possible for an organization to get safety compliance without getting commitment? Yes. In fact, that's what exists in most workplaces. Unfortunately, most companies are content to let their employees meet the bare minimum in safety and rely on compliance to get them there.
Compliance is easy to achieve. All it takes is brute-force enforcement of rules. Sadly, that heavy-handed approach makes for a lousy place to work, so people leave. When new hires come on board, more enforcement happens ... which leads to more turnover. Once a company falls into that cycle, it has a hard time breaking out of it.
Compliance is a short-term fix, not a long-term vision for a safety program. Blind adherence to safety policies isn't enough: it's important to have commitment to them. Workers should own their participation in safety, not just give it minimum attention so they don't get fired.
Before they can embrace safety wholeheartedly, though, team members need clarity on what they will get for their commitment. They need to know the plan, the details, the people involved, and how they will benefit from committing to it. People buy into things that make their lives better in some way. They don't buy into things that don't benefit them, and they certainly don't follow guidance from people they don't trust.
Companies can offer that clarity by giving employees extensive information about safety and presenting it in a way that persuades employees to buy into it. People don't commit to safety because someone is standing with their back to the room while reading out every slide in a big PowerPoint deck. They commit to safety when they engage with the information enough to fully accept and internalize it.