Safety Culture - How to build one

The safety of the workplace is gradually rising in importance for employees. 79% of the workers polled for the 2022 State of Employee Safety Report responded that now more than ever, occupational safety is important to them, proving the need for a strong safety culture.

One issue for firms that calls for a safer workplace is finding motivated staff. According to the National Safety Council, the cost of occupational fatalities and injuries combined was 16.2 billion in 2020. Additionally, a lack of safety can cost a company more in lost productivity, employee attrition, and brand and reputation harm.

Safety concerns are a sign of a broader organisational mismatch. Your business will have the required groundwork for effective policies, emergency preparations, and employee involvement if you create a healthy and safe culture from the ground up.

Here, we'll look at how to revamp your safety management and develop a robust safety culture.

Everything You Need to Know About Building a Safety Culture

A company with a poor safety culture is easy to spot in the market. Why? The lack of which, frequently results in employee resistance to safety measures, which often fail and raise the likelihood of accidents and injuries at work. Risk assessment can be an important factor to avoid such situations.

While establishing a strong culture may seem difficult, once the effort is put into doing so, the rewards are felt throughout the entire organisation. These companies often encounter:

• Increased output from employees
• Lower turnover and high employee engagement
• Lower accident or injury rates

Make Safety Culture A Part Of Your Mindset

Safety should never be considered distinct from a company's regular working procedures. It's not only a topic of conversation brought up during shift changes or weekly safety meetings and then quickly forgotten. Every facet of workplace life should incorporate safety. Every choice and conversation ought to take this mindset or attitude into consideration.

Changes in behaviour are needed at all managerial levels, all the way down to the work site. Maintaining a persistent commitment to swap out negligent behaviour and complacency with a proactive strategy that avoids accidents is necessary for cultivating a true culture of safety.

A successful culture of safety encourages behavioural changes at all management levels.

Lead By Example

Setting a good example for your team members by upholding all safety regulations will motivate them to follow suit. Employees will adhere to safety commitments if management is prepared to do so. It is essential to have employee buy-in if you want a strong safety culture. Establishing a transparent accountability approach helps support a healthy workplace and advances the standards of leading by example.

Organisations with a strong culture of safety are aware that accidents and crises can happen at any time and have effective processes in place to handle them right away.

Promptly address hazards in the workplace through a hazard reporting system.

Quiz And Test Your Employees

Testing your employees' awareness of workplace safety is one of the quickest and easiest methods to see if you have a good culture. Quick tests can help you determine whether there are knowledge gaps so you can offer the right training and other resources to fill them.

Implement Hands-On Training for Safety Culture

Proper training is critical when creating a culture of safety within an organisation. Sharing best practices and creating opportunities for employees to have hands-on learning sessions help employees retain and successfully implement new safety initiatives. Additionally, investing in quality training shows employees that you care about their safety, increasing team member buy-in and support.

Develop A System Of Open Communication

Strong cultures of safety invest in developing open channels of communication across their entire on-site organisation. It's critical to inform staff members of new safety measures if you want to implement policies and procedures effectively. Monthly safety seminars are a wonderful approach to disseminate new knowledge and encourage open dialogue among employees about workplace safety.

Involve Workers

Starting from the ground up, a strong safety culture may be built and maintained. Involving your workforce in the process is another method to win over their support. Get comments on the existing communication strategies or ask them how they would like the reporting process to appear.

In Essence

It is obvious that developing a safety culture within a company is one of the main challenges safety managers confront across all industries. To be successful, creating a supportive safety culture must go well beyond incentives and integrate with the company's whole corporate culture.

It can be difficult to promote that mindset and encourage behavioural changes among a full staff, but the effort and support of the business are well worth it. An organisation's safety culture ultimately revolves around a shared vision that includes each and every employee. Software and services can help you assess risks in the workplace but without first building a safety culture these initiatives will struggle.