What Is a Culture of Safety?
A culture of safety is a proactive way to prevent injuries while promoting enhanced responsibility, health and safety at your company. A safety culture is holistic, combining processes, mindsets, goals, attitudes, approaches and training to make a company’s health and safety program a regular part of your organization at every level.
Why Is a Culture of Safety Important?
When you make safety part of the fabric of your organization, you can reduce the risk of injury and create better outcomes for all employees. A safety culture empowers everyone at your company to take ownership of their wellbeing and continue important conversations. As your organization grows and shifts, this ongoing focus allows your safety systems and processes to adapt and strengthen.
What Every Culture of Safety Needs
A culture of safety needs:
- Communication: Company employees at all levels need to talk about safety. Organizations can hold regular meetings, publish newsletters about the topic and create open-door policies to foster discussion. Everyone from leadership to new hires should be encouraged to take part and to lead initiatives.
- Investment: Organizations need to invest in quality PPE, necessary safety devices and safety initiatives. Millions of Americans are injured in the workplace each year, so investing in safety measures to avoid risks will pay for themselves over time.
- Training: Employees need to take part in ongoing training to learn how to reduce risks, stay safe in the workplace and adapt to new technologies as you implement them.
- Leadership: Leaders need to buy into safety programs and lead by example.
- Empowerment: Workers should be empowered to report safety issues and even their own errors without fear of reprimand. They also need to see themselves as an essential part of the safety culture.
- PPE: Personal protective equipment keeps workers safe. PPE is often a requirement for employees who face hazards on the job. In a culture of safety, leadership ensures plenty of quality PPE is on hand and that everyone uses PPE correctly every time it’s required.
Creating a Culture of Safety
You can create a culture of safety by:
- Evaluating your current safety processes and culture: Who is currently responsible for health and safety in your workplace? Identify what’s working and where there are gaps. You can use assessment tools available from third-party services and online to help with safety analysis.
- Make someone responsible: Create a committee that will guide the health and safety culture development at your company.
- Create a measurable plan and track your progress: Create a step-by-step plan to address any safety challenges and involve everyone in your new culture. Use accountability charts, scorecards or another system to keep track of your progress and update everyone about your new initiatives.
- Governance and continual improvement: Create a process for checking in on your new culture and ask for feedback from every level. Keep asking what’s working and what’s not so you can make changes as needed.
Your Partner in a Safety Culture
Quality PPE is an important part of any safety culture. SUNLINE Supply is a company carrying only the highest-rated PPE products, helping you reach your health and safety goals. Browse and purchase products from SUNLINE Supply today.
