How to encourage a safe working culture

It’s super important to keep your employees safe at work. However, you can spend a huge amount of resources ensuring that every appropriate safety measure is in place, only for employees not to take it seriously. That’s why you also need to encourage a safe working culture. Here’s how to do it.

Train employees well

Employee behavior and culture always come from their training. If they have been trained well, they are likely to take workplace safety seriously. So the question is – how do you train employees for this? The answer is different for every employer, of course. However, the main thing is that you provide real-world examples and ensure that training isn’t just a box-ticking exercise. You need to make sure that employees take it seriously.

Reward employees for safe behavior

One way to encourage a safe working culture is to reward safe behavior. However, it’s important to ensure that it doesn’t come across as patronizing, as this could damage the credibility of your workplace safety program. Some ways to reward safe behavior include:

• Create a safety reward structure.
• Thank and pay employees for safety training.
• Host a quarterly safety quiz (with prizes).
• Offer extra holidays for employees with a clean safety record.

Use labels and signs

Labels and signs are super important when creating a safe working culture and meeting business safety compliance rules. They act as directions and reminders for employees as they carry out their daily duties. You might think that labels and signs are easily ignored, and that can be true in some cases. However, it has been shown that they do increase safety. For labels and signs to be effective, they need to stand out. That means choosing a bold color and making them large enough to be visible. They also need to be super clear. Choose simple language and large clear fonts. This will help employees understand them at a glance.

Keep things clean and tidy

A clean and tidy workplace is a safe workplace. If your premises are cleaned and disinfected regularly, it will significantly reduce the amount infections and illnesses in the business. This is a really important thing to consider when it comes to encouraging a safe working culture. Additionally, it’s important to encourage workers to be tidy. If things are left around, people can easily trip over them and cause serious injury.

Make sure employees have the right tools

For employees to work safely, they need the right tools. For example, any chef will tell you that a blunt knife is more dangerous than a sharp one because a blunt knife is impossible to be accurate with and will slip onto your hand. In a warehouse, employees need high-quality tools and safety equipment. In an office, employees need office equipment that works.

Offer regular breaks

Forcing your employees to work for long hours without breaks is unsafe. In addition, as employees become tired, they will become less inclined to follow workplace safety procedures. Therefore, you should provide regular breaks and ensure that employees don’t feel overworked.

Also Read: How Coworking Gets You Ready for the Upcoming Industry Trends