Dale Lesinski, DiVal Safety
Let’s begin with the obvious: The value of safety cannot be underestimated. Beyond its benefits of saving capital and human lives, safety results in improving employee morale, changing beliefs and outlooks, and reducing at-risk behaviors.
But unlike the weather and various other uncontrollable phenomena, safety doesn’t just happen. And it’s more than employees blindly following a set of rules or procedures. Safety is the result of a conscious culture that is generated from the top down.
Safety culture is a way of life — a habit or mindset — that occurs when it is introduced, encouraged and practiced by senior management. When owners, managers and supervisors make an unqualified commitment to safety as a top company value, safety becomes an everyday part of doing business for every employee.
But that’s just the beginning. An effective safety culture requires a safety plan. While optimum safety is indisputably the ideal of individuals and industry alike, the fact is companies often lack an effective safety plan to communicate that safety message to employees.
The objective of any effective safety campaign is to promote a consistent message that reinforces safe behaviors. It also encourages employees to watch out for each other, and when they encounter an unsafe situation, they speak up about it. Employees who understand we are “our brother’s keepers” will monitor each other in a positive manner.
How to get there
When you encourage employees to become involved with the safety campaign and solicit input from staff who will be directly affected by it, you’ll get great contributions. They’ll feel respected.
Choosing a title or theme elevates your company’s safety campaign from just an esoteric idea to an identifiable goal. For example, we’ve adopted a simple company slogan: “Safe 4 the Right Reasons™.” That reason may be your employees’ desire to go home every day to their families in one piece. That reason may be their desire to pay off their mortgages. Your safety slogan reminds employees and partners alike to consider their own personal reasons for performing their jobs safely. The bonus is their behaviors will be positively influenced not just at work but also at home.
Deliver the slogan
Once you’ve adopted a safety slogan, determine how to deliver it. Embed its message in the minds of your employees with banners, signage, take-home handouts and other forms of visual communication. Monthly morale-lifting events can be enhanced with small giveaways bearing your company’s safety slogan and other incentives. Publicly recognize and acknowledge top-performing safety leaders who embrace your safety message.
Quarterly events like company picnics or parties help sustain your safety message and keep it alive. The participation of managers and supervisors at these events goes a long way to demonstrate commitment to the safety message.
A more dramatic way to communicate safety at training meetings and toolbox sessions is to encourage those who have been injured because of poor safety behaviors to talk about how their accidents or incidents affected them and their families. Those who have experienced the consequences of poor safety are often more effective at motivating staff to adopt safety than senior management. When employees adopt safety as a personal value, the result is a positive safety culture. They also will go home safely to their families every day.
For more information, visit www.divalsafety.com or call (716) 874-9060.
