Management’s commitment complimented by employee involvement plays a key role in establishing a strong safety culture throughout a company. Without managements support, it can be an on-going battle to sustain employee involvement and encourage everyone to take safety seriously. Without employee involvement, injuries and illnesses will be more prevalent in the workplace.
To obtain strong management commitment, it’s very important that upper management leads by example. The key here is to SHOW, not just TELL. If supervisors are always telling employees how important safety and health is but not working safely themselves, employees are less likely to take management seriously and/or follow the outlined safety rules and regulations. For example, if a supervisor was constantly walking around without wearing a hard hat and safety glasses while telling employees they have to be wearing their personal protective equipment, employees will believe it’s not important to wear PPE.
Here are a few examples as to how management can exemplify that safety is their number one priority:
- Post the company’s written safety and health policies for all to see (i.e. break room, employee lounge, etc.).
- Involve employees in policy making and decisions on safety and health issues.
- Take an active part in safety activities (i.e. safety committee, department/onsite inspections, etc.)
- Hold meetings that focus on employee safety and health.
- Invest time, effort, and money in your safety and health program (i.e company trainings, budget meetings, etc.)
- Lastly, always abide by all safety and health rules!
Employee involvement is just as important as management commitment. Management can stress safety every day but if employees aren’t participating in safe working practices, workplace incidents are inevitable.
Here are some examples as to how employees can show their commitment to safety in the workplace:
- Participate on joint labor-management committees and other advisory or specific purpose committees.
- Conduct and/or participate in department/onsite inspections.
- Analyze routine hazards in each step of a job or process and prepare safe work practices or controls to eliminate or reduce exposure.
- Provide management with recommendations to develop and revise the site safety and health rules.
- Train both current and newly hired employees.
- Provide written programs and presentations at safety and health meetings.
- Participate in and/or conduct accident investigations and communicate corrective actions and lessons learned back to other employees
- Report and fix hazards within your control.
- Support your fellow workers by providing feedback on risks and assisting them in eliminating hazards.
- Perform a pre-use or change analysis for new equipment or processes in order to identify hazards up front before use.
Building a strong safety culture can sometimes be a difficult process but once it is achieved everyone benefits from it. Employee involvement and management commitment must both coexist achieve a proactive safety culture in the workplace. Remember, always lead by example!