It is a simple formula, but saying it and making it happen are two very different matters. And besides that, the best reason to
cultivate safety in your workplace is to protect the health of your employees.
All the right reasons
A truly safe work environment can only be made possible by creating a "safety culture," demonstrating to your employees that their health and safety are important to you. If your employees feel that you do not care about their health and safety, your business will suffer due to higher turnover. Most likely, an increase in on-the-job injuries will result.
If losses could be reduced to a spreadsheet, it would make sense to focus on reducing your injuries incrementally by, say, 50 percent per year. If you had 20 employees injured last year, should you make it a goal to only injure 10 this year, or should you make it a goal to try to protect every single one of them? The answer is obvious.
The ingredients of safety
Safety is a recipe with five key ingredients: hiring, providing training and setting expectations, holding employees accountable, feedback/communication, and retaining skilled workers. Leaving out any one of these ingredients will leave your safety recipe tasting bitter.
Start with hiring
Begin at the beginning with your hiring methods. Certain best practices make for a safer workforce. Make sure you use written job applications, as well as reference and background checks, DMV checks, and preemployment drug testing. This process helps you gather the facts you need to make good hiring decisions and make it clear from the beginning that you have high standards.
Training and expectations
Once you have hired a new employee, it's the ideal time to establish expectations and provide the appropriate training to meet those expectations. Ways you can accomplish this include conducting a new employee orientation, designing specific training for all job tasks, training whenever a new job or task is assigned to an employee, and using an assessment to demonstrate that the employee has learned what has been taught.
It's all about accountability
By maintaining an atmosphere of accountability, you demonstrate that safety is important for your business. How can you create and maintain this kind of safety environment?
- Start by providing proper training to your employees on how to do their jobs safely, and reinforce proper behavior while enforcing the rules.
- Frequently monitor the various safety policies you have put in place to make sure they are effective.
- If any injuries, near-injuries, or related problems occur, analyze what happened and make changes to prevent further incidents. This may mean you have to develop a hazard identification and control process.
- Implement a fair, clearly communicated, and documented progressive discipline policy. While there is no one way to administer discipline, a good discipline policy provides guidance for employees and supervisors that starts with an informal discussion for minor violations, includes verbal and written warnings, and ends with a suspension or the possibility of dismissal for serious violations.
Communication that works
Open communication is essential for any safety culture, and the benefits extend beyond safety. By functioning as coaches – reinforcing behaviors and practices that are working well and seeking to understand when and why employees don't follow procedures – supervisors create a supportive environment in which employees know they matter. And by empowering employees to speak up about safety issues as well as devise solutions, you can ensure that your employees know their concerns and ideas are important.
Retaining great people
Forty percent of all claims involve employees who have been on the job for less than a year. When you inspire a positive, supportive environment for your employees, cultivating a healthy safety culture is made easier. Components of a supportive work environment include promoting purpose and teamwork, open communication, coaching for improvement, opportunity to learn new skills, employee recognition, and competitive pay.
Did you know?
Nationally, employees who abuse drugs cost employers twice as much in workers' compensation and medical expenses as their drug-free co-workers.
- 11 percent of workers have been offered illegal drugs in the workplace. *
- 71 percent of employers have some type of drug policy in place. *
* Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Reprinted from Comp News, Fall 2009, Part two of three
View Controlling your workers' comp costs | Part one | Part three