10 Secrets to Creating and Executing a Successful Safety Program Within Your Company
Create a Foundation for Safety and Health as the Top Priority. Check in with every employee within the workplace and work sites to ensure they are mentally, emotionally, and physically well. Implementing this small effort daily or weekly can easily increase employee retention rate, because workers want to feel like they are cared about. Ask them about how they feel about how all things “safety-wise” are going during their day to day tasks. Have real conversations with your employees about safety, and if they see anything that is unsafe or can be fixed. This opens the door to you taking accountability for maintaining and improving all aspects of site safety for the workers.
Take Accountability for developing sharp eyes with boots on the ground for anything unsafe, or anything that could lead to an incident. Use accountability to fuel your plan of action into newer, more effective solutions for the workers’ tasks.
Match your words with your actions daily. Your employees will perceive your actions and effective leadership style in the best ways when you simply lead by example. Cut out all distractions and get focused on tuning in, so that your team takes you and your safety practices seriously.
Have a structured way for everyone to report incidents or unsafe situations in a streamlined manner. Put together methods for clear communication and protocols for your workers to adhere to for any sicknesses, injuries, close calls, near misses, and hazards without the worry or stress of pushback from peers or anyone in leadership positions. Make sure that employees are informed that you’ve designed a way for them to report and inform without their name being leaked out to the company. Make things anonymous to protect the employee who was just trying to do the right thing.
Put your employees in high-quality, legitimate safety training classes that meet or exceed the OSHA standards, requirements, and regulations. Maintain their certifications to ensure no worker has expired certifications so that whenever OSHA shows up, you’re ready to show the proof! Your productivity will naturally increase when workers have the awareness and knowledge on how to avoid, recognize, and control hazards. There won’t be any need to stop work to provide attention to an incident, everything will be moving smoothly in great working order!
Hire an outsourced third party safety consulting company to execute proper work place and work site inspections and mock OSHA audits. This gives you a huge advantage in having fresh perspectives from experienced safety professionals that don’t have a biased opinion about your company. In OSHA’s eyes, it looks great when you have proof of working with third-party safety consultants.
Design a safety mentorship and coaching method for your employees. Let’s face it, nobody likes a “safety cop” and everyone runs away from the company’s designated “safety” guy or gal when they show up on the work sites. It is important to have a mentorship and coaching approach to build long lasting professional relationships with your workers that are rooted in trust, honesty, and integrity.
Research the most effective solutions for Hazard Control. There are many options out there you will stumble upon when you take the time to research them. Although, you have to find solutions that have the right alignment with your specific work place and work sites. Make sure you get specific enough in your Hazard Control Plans so that it will provide a successful solution.
Put the Hazard Control Plans into action and pay attention. Is it working the way you wanted it to? Are you asking the workers to give you feedback? Are you fully immersed in testing out the success of your Hazard Control Plans? Nobody likes to waste their time, so make sure you’re laser focused on every detail and evaluating the cause and effect of all the Hazard Control components.
Implement Emergency ActIon Plans. Determine what emergency situations could potentially happen in your workplace or work sites, and what actions need to be taken. Have regular meetings with all of your employees, and roll this topic into your regular or quarterly safety meetings. Ask for feedback, open up discussions, and look for improvements regularly. The lack of knowledge causes a much higher risk of injuries, fatalities, misunderstandings, and miscommunications during emergency situations.
We have designed, developed and implemented successful safety programs for all of our clients over the last nine years! Our team has served industrial welding companies, construction companies, commercial roofing contractors, oil and gas organizations, manufacturing organizations, and more! Reach out to us if you need help creating a safety program for your organization. Whether you need to start from scratch and have us take care of everything safety for you, or if you just are missing one piece of it…we’re here to help! Feel free to send us an email at support@truesafetyservices.com or give our team a call at 970-534-2530
