“Workplace culture” is a word that has become excessively trendy and is creating quite a storm in the corporate world. However, if you look at it closely and what it really means, you will realize that it is more than a trendy buzzword and more like a complete representation of your whole organizational culture and what and how you like to do things at your company. It doesn’t as such refer directly to your safety policy, but it rather pertains to the mindsets, behaviors and attitudes of your employees, managers, supervisors and owners. A positive and modern safety culture is crucial to the success of an organization. Designing and implementing a health and safety program can change your entire safety culture. It may seem daunting to some at first but that mostly happens to organizations that have fallen into a rut and are following a pattern of complacency for years. The catastrophic and disastrous effects of complacency can be accidents, illnesses and injuries, all of which can happen at your workplace if necessary precautions are not put into effect. Here are several tips to enhance and effectively put into place a balanced safety and health culture in your organization;
Communicate
The best strategy to enforce a positive health and safety culture in your workplace or organization is to communicate with your employees through your local network, newsletters, emails or social media. Although most organizations do make it a point to make the health and safety guidelines available to all employees either on paper or in an electronic format, you can use the intranet to communicate with your employees as to what they are. You can also readily inform them of any changes made to the health and safety policy. Keeping your employees apprised of any changes is crucial for implementing any guidelines and to ensure that they will be followed and complied with. Managers should also hold weekly or monthly talks with their employees to evaluate how much they know about the health and safety guidelines, to answer any questions that they might have or to report any useful feedback to higher ups in the hierarchy.
Provide the Necessary Training
Training your employees will demonstrate to the corporate world that you are committed and serious about maintain a positive health and safety culture in your organization. Training can help employees embrace guidelines with ease and comfort.
Develop a Strategy and Enforce It through a Reporting Process
Any employees who go out of their way to report or identify any safety issue or hazard should be rewarded with an intrinsic or extrinsic reward. A positive health and safety culture is easier to maintain when employees find it easier to communicate any concerns they have about the system. That can only happen when they know that their feedback will be received and acted upon in an effective and efficient manner.
Involve the Workers through an Active Method
Maintaining and building a health and safety culture is not an easy feat. Nevertheless, it can be made easier by involving employees. Simply inquire what they would like and how would they change the reporting process. Organizations can glean positively useful information from these kinds of interactions that can improve the current methods which are in use.
