WORKPLACE SAFETY: GET EMPLOYEES INVOLVED

By: Kimberly Daise

For some employers’ safety is the most important aspect of their business, a healthy investment which their company strives to promote throughout the workplace. Yet others see safety as code for an over burdensome waste of time, money, and effort. For businesses struggling with safety culture improvement, here are a few tips to raise and increase awareness.

Increase the importance and awareness of the benefits of safety in the work place. Employees may be hesitant to embrace safety if they feel that it does not apply to them. It is important that employees understand that even if they are not working on machines or climbing to dangerous heights, that they are still at risk of injury. Include information and statistics on real life safety topics such as food preparation, or slip and falls in rest rooms or walking down a hallway. Topics like these will show employees that there are risks involved with every job! Videos of real workplace safety hazards and community safety programs can help get the point across. Encourage employees to include their family members in the safety message. Injuries can affect people at home or at work.

Another great way to involve employees in the safety environment and concern of the business is by creating a new safety committee/board, or inviting them to join your existing safety committee/board or if no committee /board exist, to have a monthly meeting with the employer to discuss the safety aspect. Make sure management allows employees to participate during work time.  Employees may not want to take their free time to discuss this matter and it confirms that the employer is respectful of the employees’ time. A safety meeting should have representatives from all levels of the organization, from management to laborers. This gives employees the opportunity to express any concerns they may have along with efforts to ensure those issues are addressed with everyone’s impute.  Sometimes employees may provide options that the employer can utilize and this will buster good will between all parties. The committee can also create goals for safety compliance, including rewarding employees for participating or making safety improvements.

Since safety does not remain of the minds of employee every second, a simple way to keep safety in the minds of your employees is to include a reminder in their paycheck envelopes, send emails, text messages or safety news update boards in employee areas. Providing and sharing safety tips, statistics, and real-life stories about other companies like your own are just a few examples of what can be included. Ask your employees for suggestions or ideas on what they would like to learn more about.   Additional, host safety training seminars or meeting at the workplace.  These meeting should take place during work hours.  This will keep safely a little more on the minds of the employee and provide safety updates.

The focus of the committee and the employer encouragement to the employee should be to help the employer identify the hazard and correct it.  Encourage employees to look for hazards in the workplace and report them to the appropriate personnel to correct the problem!  Make workplace safety a habit not a hassle.