The Health & Safety Culture within your organisation can and will have an enormous impact on the safety outcomes & accident rates in your workplace.

High levels of accident rates within your organisation can have a detrimental effect on the productivity, efficiency and profitability of the business and that’s why it is vital that a positive Health & Safety culture is always promoted.

In theory promoting a positive culture is simple, in reality – not always the case.

So, let’s talk about what you can do to ensure employees are engaged in building and maintaining a safe working environment;

It all starts from the top!

It’s true, without the commitment of management and senior management your safety culture is doomed to fail. Employees who feel that their managers and superiors care about them and their welfare will always work better and are more likely to follow the policies and procedures that you are enforcing. So, get the top dogs on board!

Involve your team

Communication is key. If employees know and understand what’s going on in their workplace then they are way more likely to respond well to it. If they understand why it is they have to do something, or follow a certain rule then it is more likely it will be adhered to. Employees who feel like part of something or part of a team feel more appreciated and more motivated to do well.

Get trained up

Investing in training your employees has a number of benefits. If they see you investing in them, then they are more likely to invest in you. Again, it shows you care about their safety and well-being. It also helps with building an understanding of workplace hazards, what to be looking out for, safe systems of work, why it is important to follow procedures procedures…the list is endless.

Be approachable

You want employees to be reporting issues and hazards, how are you going to improve things if they don’t? They are the ones on the front line and will likely be identifying these issues first and foremost. If they don’t feel comfortable approaching you it’s likely you won’t know what’s wrong until an accident has happened.

There’s sooo much more we could be talking about but hopefully you get the jist! Every workplace is different and will have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to safety. What’s important is that you are keeping on top of it and always working to improve it. It costs nothing to show your team you care. Training yes, that will cost you, but sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

We’ve put together a wee list for further reading, if you so wish;

https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/fod/inspect/mast/safetychecklist.htm

https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/common4.pdf

https://www.iosh.com/media/1548/safety-culture-advice-and-performance-summary-report.pdf

And as always, for any training advice get in touch with our team today.