Preventing accidents and injuries through routine inspections and procedures saves both time, money, and lost productivity compared to reacting after employees become sick or injured. But creating and maintaining a positive safety culture is often challenging for businesses.
Leaders seeking to enhance safety must address the mind-sets that drive unsafe behavior and develop sustainable safety cultures. Here are five strategies leaders can implement to overcome barriers and establish sustainable safety cultures.
Implement a Safety Committee
Establishing and running a safety committee provides frontline employees the chance to collaborate closely with management in creating an atmosphere of safety within their company culture, helping prevent injuries or accidents while meeting compliance standards and cutting insurance costs by offering an open forum for discussing workplace hazards and devising solutions.
An effective safety committee requires representatives from administration, operating departments and staff personnel. It should be tailored to fit your company’s unique requirements – for instance, a one-product factory may only need a small committee while manufacturing facilities that produce multiple products will need larger groups to reflect all their processes.
Safety committees should set goals and assign roles to members. A designated chairperson can help keep meetings on track while someone should document proceedings by keeping minutes of meetings; this information can then be distributed amongst all committee members to raise awareness of its accomplishments.
For maximum effectiveness, the committee should meet at least once every month and create a schedule for performing inspections and reassessments of various aspects of company operations based on previous safety inspection results or other relevant factors that determine when further safety inspections will take place.
At meetings, the safety committee should review and prioritize duties within an organization and assess progress made towards its assigned tasks. If there are too many assignments, consider creating subcommittees to address them more efficiently.
The Safety Committee should report its efforts’ successes to both management and employees via newsletters or posting results online, such as on an intranet portal. Furthermore, this committee is charged with creating an evident safety culture throughout the company through rewarding positive safety outcomes and encouraging future initiatives that reinforce safety measures.
Invest in the Right Tools and Equipment
Assuring workers have access to the tools and equipment needed for their jobs is integral for safety. Whether working in an office or construction site, having the appropriate tools enables employees to complete their work more safely and effectively while mitigating workplace injuries as well as alleviating frustration. Plus, having these tools increases productivity allowing workers to complete tasks more rapidly and efficiently.
Investment in appropriate tools and equipment is another effective way of preventing equipment loss. Tools may go missing due to multiple causes, including being returned to an incorrect storage area, loaned out inappropriately to people, lost within warehouses or vehicles or stolen altogether. Businesses should implement systems to make it easier for employees to track where and condition of their tools: using color-coded tags or labels with clear instructions as to where specific tools should be kept or broadcasting important safety updates across digital displays – perhaps by way of digital signage that displays this vital safety info or updates across their workforces.
Employers should take additional steps to ensure their employees have been provided with tools and equipment, but also provided with proper training on its use. This is particularly relevant when the equipment poses high injury risks or requires complex operations. In order to combat this risk, companies can invest in industry-specific training sessions or online resources tailored specifically for them.
Ensuring all employees receive appropriate safety training demonstrates the company’s respect for employee wellbeing and compassion towards their needs. According to research, empathy can motivate positive workplace behaviors like compliance with safety protocols and building an excellent safety culture.
Establishing an effective safety program is no simple feat. It takes ongoing commitment from all involved, along with dedicated efforts towards creating a safer workplace environment. However, effective safety training, modern hiring practices and proper tools can help businesses reduce workers’ comp claims, lower turnover and increase productivity, efficiency and compliance with industry standards.
Conduct Regular Safety Meetings
An effective safety meeting is one of the best ways to keep employees up-to-date on topics ranging from how to recognize and avoid hazards, proper PPE usage and emergency procedures to recent accidents or rule violations observed. These meetings should utilize different techniques – visual aids or even role-plays can keep employee attention. Humor should only be used sparingly and when applicable to the topic being covered.
Safety meetings can save both time and money by helping to prevent or mitigate workplace incidents before they arise. This is especially true if they’re held regularly as recommended by OHSAA; with regards to programs designed to promote workplace safety, regular safety meetings should also be an integral component.
Ideal meeting times should take place during normal working hours and before employees begin their shifts; that way they are more likely to pay attention and stay engaged with what is being presented than tuning out. Since not everyone can attend every safety meeting or may need to leave early due to illness or other reasons, consider recording and making available on your company intranet so all employees have access to its contents when needed.
Safety meetings should last no more than 20 minutes or risk losing the audience’s interest. To keep them engaged with what’s being discussed, you could break it into multiple meetings with short breaks between sessions to keep attendees attentive.
An engaging safety meeting leader doesn’t need to be the one answering questions or leading discussion, rather, veteran employees can step in as helpers by offering feedback or recounting their own stories of experience. This allows less experienced coworkers to teach newer workers from their knowledge base while making your meeting more engaging for all of your employees.
Keep Safety Records
An old saying states: if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.” This adage also applies to workplace health and safety; keeping accurate records of accidents, inspections, and other activities helps workers identify hazards more readily as well as change their work processes accordingly; furthermore it helps businesses meet legal requirements more easily.
Employers need records to assess which areas of their business require improvement, for instance if employees are being injured at one location, the employer can enhance safety by moving that department or installing safer equipment; also it can prevent repeat injuries by identifying which hazards occur most frequently and coming up with ways to stop them happening again.
Another key part of record-keeping is identifying risk factors most likely to lead to injury or illness, whether through using a checklist, watching employees complete their jobs, conducting air and noise sampling or taking similar measures. Once identified, risks can be prioritized according to their likelihood of harming workers and placing them at risk of injury or illness; hazards identified through this ranking process will then be prioritized for control – typically engineering controls (like safe tools and facilities) are the best way of mitigating risks; administrative control measures ( like rotating jobs or rest breaks) help mitigate exposures.
Recordkeeping can also assist in identifying which employees are most at risk of injury or illness and providing training accordingly, helping companies save on workers’ compensation claims while simultaneously lowering insurance premiums and other expenses.
An impressive safety record can be an attractive selling point for any business, demonstrating its ability to manage risks and implement procedures efficiently. Potential employees and investors often look at this element when determining if they want to join or invest in the organization.