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12 Ideas to Improve Safety in the Workplace

August 16, 2019

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Workplace safety issues can be present in any field but are particularly prevalent in industries such as transportation, manufacturing, and construction. However, the work doesn’t have to be of a physical nature to present a risk. Offices, schools, and retail outlets all have their own set of hazards. What’s essential is promoting workplace safety programs and safety awareness and following through.

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In 1970, after decades of minimal work safety regulations, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) paved the way for accountability regarding injuries obtained in the workplace. OSHA established guidelines and ramifications for hazardous or detrimental surroundings in the workplace. Promoting safety in the workplace is beneficial to both workers and employers. It also results in fewer workers’ compensation cases.

Business Benefits of Safety in the Workplace

The safety and well-being of your employees are important enough reasons to establish a safety program in the workplace, but there are other business benefits to starting a safety program and sticking to it. The following are reasons why your business will benefit from a workplace safety program:

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  • Social responsibility: Standing by a work safety program demonstrates to your staff and the public that your organization is socially responsible.
  • Brand image: It adds value to your brand and ups your image and reputation.
  • Increased productivity: Your employees and workers will be more productive as they stick to safety guidelines.
  • Increased profits: You’ll bring in more revenue.
  • Raises morale: Employees will have higher morale, knowing their employers care about their safety. They will be more dedicated to the organization.
  • Healthier employees: Fewer days out sick or injured.
  • Schedules: Fewer disruptions to deadlines related to missed days due to injury.
  • Meets customer expectations: Lets a business meet the occupational and safety expectations of their clients and customers.

 

Principles of Occupational Safety and Health

Before embarking on putting together a safety program, it is best to recognize the principles of occupational safety and health. These are factors upon which a good safety program is based. Here are the principles to consider when building your safety program:

  • Workplace safety policies and procedures that actually work.
  • A commitment from leadership and management to constantly improve safety.
  • Using risk assessment.
  • Using efficiency regarding risk control measures.
  • A commitment to well-trained, competent employees.
  • Process reviews and monitoring of program effectiveness.

 

Establish an Effective Workplace Safety Culture

A safety culture is a general approach for the organization’s safety management. It blends an effort made by groups and individuals regarding attitudes, proficiency, values and goals of a company’s safety program.

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Every level of leadership and management has to be committed to workplace safety, as it helps employees take these programs seriously. The outcome is a more secure work environment for everybody. Leadership is responsible for encouraging this safety culture, but it all trickles down to every single person who works for the company. Each associate is in charge of doing their part in keeping themselves and their co-workers safe.

Companies with a culture of safety demonstrate a strong concern for their employees’ safety and well-being. The safety culture must be pervasive throughout all departments and levels. Management needs to be observant of the atmosphere by spending time all around their facilities. They will need to monitor procedures and positively reinforce company guidelines and values. Leadership should use what they learn and observe to improve safety processes and promote the safety program with all employees.

An option that will help management build a safety culture is to assign an employee to champion the safety program in each location or department. The chosen employees would be tasked with retaining knowledge and understanding of what is required to construct this safety culture for their departments. In a lot of companies, this assigned person could be an HR associate or a safety manager. They could also be a shift supervisor or a facility operations manager. It all depends on a company’s resources and staff for whom they have a budget. The following are tasks for this person to manage:

  • Outstanding safety issues and hazards.
  • Areas that need safety improvement.
  • Required training for improving workers’ safety routines.
  • Gathering and disseminating safety incident reports.
  • Heading up accident investigations in the workplace.

 

How to Promote Safety in the Workplace

Building and maintaining a successful safety culture is an evolving process that requires a commitment from the entire staff of an organization. The overall effort will deliver results that include a positive outlook regarding safety and a lower number of incidents and accidents. The following are tips to help your organization start building a stable safety culture:

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1. CLARIFY AND DEFINE SAFETY RESPONSIBILITIES

Define responsibilities within each level and department of your organization. This should encompass goals, policies and plans for safety culture.

2. CHANGE HOW YOU MEASURE SAFETY

Creating an effective safety culture needs to address the way safety incidents are measured. Incident rates are a much-needed metric, but it needs to be just one of several factors. Refocus on a workplace safety checklist of actions that are proactive in preventing injuries by your employees. Keep track of what people are doing to avoid injuries and accidents. This will ensure that safety is in the spotlight at all times, not only when an accident or injury occurs. Weekly or even daily accountabilities will elevate safety to other business objectives. Safety will be woven into all of the different parts of the company.

3. TELL ALL EMPLOYEES ABOUT YOUR SAFETY OUTLINE

Everyone in the company needs to be on the same page regarding the planned safety culture, including safety objectives.

4. EMPHASIZE ACCOUNTABILITY

Your process should hold every person responsible for being involved, with an emphasis on leadership and management.

5. ESTABLISH A SAFETY HIERARCHY

Provide a hierarchy structure to ensure that leaders like managers and supervisors are held responsible for responding to employees’ concerns. Let employees know who’s accountable for which departments and issues.

6. ALWAYS REPORT

Emphasize to all employees the significance of reporting all near misses, first aid procedures — even a bandage for a cut and injuries. If there is an atmosphere of very few reports, be prepared for an uptick in reported incidents. Eventually, incidents should level off as everyone adjusts to the new safety culture.

7. REEVALUATE YOUR SYSTEM OF INVESTIGATING INJURIES AND SAFETY INCIDENTS

This is vital to ensure that investigations are completed in a practical manner. Investigations should effectively identify the cause of incidents and accidents in the workplace.

8. BOOST AN ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST

Keep everything calm, especially when safety ideas at work change drastically. Boosting the trust factor will aid in encouraging all employees to work toward making improvements.

9. TAKE PRIDE IN THE PROCESS

Tell all employees involved in your safety culture plans. This will help keep everyone updated, make them feel they are contributing to the process, and best of all motivated to help achieve the organization’s safety goals.

12 Ideas to Promote Safety in the Workplace

Overexertion and falls top the list of work-related injuries. Overexertion is caused by pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, holding or throwing objects. These injuries cost businesses billions of dollars a year.

Employers ultimately pay for all these injuries with lost profit and productivity. Without appropriate safety plans in place, businesses can end up with significant costs that can impact employee health, productivity, and revenue. The following are 12 tips on how to improve safety in the workplace:

1. CREATE A WORKPLACE CULTURE OF SAFETY

As was discussed earlier, creating a culture of workplace safety will demonstrate how seriously your organization regards safety at work. Comprehensive, thorough training is required to prevent injuries in the workplace. Make sure that all employees complete required safety programs for their positions.

2. ALLOW EASY ACCESS TO SAFETY INFORMATION

Set up a separate intranet portal on your company’s website where all your safety information is available for employees. This is where they will find information such as protocol manuals, safety training tools and videos or investigation results and progress reports. Making this kind of information and media available to employees keeps them invested in your safety culture.

3. REWARD SAFE BEHAVIOR

Rewards are a great way to encourage employees to follow safety guidelines. Rewards keep your staff interested in the safety culture, which has a positive effect on lowering work-related injuries.

4. BE MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU REWARD

This is the flip side to the last tip. When you’re rewarding workers for every single thing they do to complete a job by or before a schedule, you’re unknowingly promoting a mentality that possibly compromises safety guidelines to increase the rate of production. Just make sure to let your employees know it’s better to be safer instead of worrying about numbers and skipping safety rules.

5. WORK WITH OCCUPATIONAL THERAPISTS AND CLINICIANS

These specialists will give you incredibly thorough observations of work-related injury prevention. Occupational clinicians will help your company avoid workplace injuries by visiting your facilities and completing a comprehensive assessment to identify spots where there may be a higher risk for employee accidents. Occupational and physical therapists will be able to help elevate office and work area ergonomics. They also can make assessments regarding physical performance to assist your organization’s potential employees for really demanding physical jobs.

6. USE SIGNS AND LABELS

Signs and labels are an inexpensive and useful tool for a quick, concise way to convey vital information. Usually simple, with pictures and diagrams, signs and labels can inform procedures and warn of hazards.

7. KEEP IT CLEAN

A cluttered, dirty workplace may lead to avoidable accidents. Be sure that boxes are safely stacked away from walkways. If there are spills, ensure that they are promptly cleaned. Regularly inspect areas for potentially dangerous items such as tangled electronic cords and other cables, disorganized implements and tools and messy, wet floors.

8. USE THE RIGHT TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

Be sure that all employees have the correct tools they need to do their work. Also, ensure that all the proper tools receive scheduled equipment evaluations and are inspected, serviced and cleaned on a regular basis. Malfunction of equipment is one of the most hazardous workplace issues.

9. PROMOTE STRETCHING BREAKS

These kinds of breaks help by improving work-related ergonomics and the health of your employees. Spending as little as five minutes to stretch your body can loosen your joints, get the blood flowing and reduce the risk of repetitive motion injuries. This can apply to anyone from IT specialists to assembly line workers.

10. USE SAFETY GUIDELINES FROM THE BEGINNING

“Safety first” in the workplace begins on the first day someone starts his or her job with your company. Hire qualified, conscientious employees, including managers who will follow safety protocols. Bring people on board who are competent enough to do their jobs according to the established guidelines.

11. KEEP CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION OPEN

Your employees should be able to comfortably address safety and health concerns you might have missed. This means they should feel like there’s a way for them to resolve issues with you without any hindrance by email, a suggestions box or dropping by your office if possible. Some employees may even suggest safety improvement ideas or creative workplace safety tips that are new and interesting.

12. HOLD REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEETINGS ON SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE

Regularly scheduled meetings to talk about injury prevention, go over safety protocols and address other related issues will keep a safety culture on everyone’s minds. If something happens, then everyone will remember and execute the correct procedures immediately.

Continuous Improvement of Your Safety Culture

Workplace safety is not static. It needs to evolve for many reasons, including new managers, new employees, new equipment or a new facility. There will always be room to elevate safety guidelines in the workplace. The best way to stay up to date with ever-changing safety issues is to constantly think of new, creative ideas for improving the safety culture at your company. Ideas from employees are always great to have as well.

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