How to Promote a Safety-First Workplace
June 19, 2024
How to Promote a Safety-First Workplace
Today’s employers are locked in tireless pursuit of leaner and more profitable workflows. And as business resources are slashed, reconfigured, and redeployed, it’s all too easy to let workplace safety fall by the wayside—especially within smaller companies or low-risk industries. During times like these, it’s crucial to remember a fundamental truth: The most important part of any business is its people. And without a safety-first workplace, your company could be endangering the very men, women, and families that drive its success.
At Stronghold Safety Engineering, protecting your people is our one and only mission. We offer some of the best machine safety products and industrial safety services in the business, fostering smarter, safer, and more productive workplaces. Our goal is to help you create tailored solutions that meet OSHA regulations and support the success of your employees. So today, we’ll be giving you a few simple tips you can leverage to create a safety-first workplace that delivers better business results.
1. Understand the Risks Your Business Faces
In many cases, the greatest workplace threats are ones that no one is keeping tabs on. This is particularly true in industries involving several high-profile dangers, such as hazardous chemicals or large equipment. You may be meeting minimum compliance standards, but have you taken all risk factors into account? With regular safety assessments, you can proactively identify and manage problem areas that are most likely to affect the safety of employees and your bottom line.
It's almost impossible to create a safer workplace if you don’t take the time to understand the specific risks your business faces. That’s why leading safety enterprises offer safety assessments. For example, we provide detailed machine guarding assessments to help businesses protect workers, maintain compliance with OSHA regulations, and maximize productivity. Be sure to look into services like these if you’re not sure which particular safety threats your team needs to work on.
2. Prioritize Your Safety Efforts
Once you’ve assessed the safety risks your company faces, you should have a short list of weaknesses you can improve; now it’s time to prioritize these efforts. The safest workplaces focus on the most pressing and likely threats first—without putting low-risk issues on the back burner for too long. As a general rule, you should invest the majority of your efforts into solutions for major safety concerns, while setting some resources aside for smaller safety violations. Without this prioritization system, major risks can slip through the cracks—subjecting your team to injuries and loss of production.
3. Invest in Strong Employee Training/Evaluations
Human error accounts for a huge number of work-related injuries and illnesses. As you look into superior machines and safety equipment, be sure to put equal effort into ensuring your employees stay informed and disciplined to avoid slip ups. Of course, it’s crucial to ensure your training process and materials are updated to maximize impact. But it’s also critical to make sure your staff aren’t taking unnecessary risks or falling behind on best practices.
Employee evaluations are often disregarded as an unnecessary expense, but they play a huge role in keeping your team safer and optimized. Even the best employees can take shortcuts or forget about minor safety procedures during their shift, and employee evaluations help to catch and correct these dangerous behaviors. These evaluation efforts can even uncover more efficient practices that haven’t been adopted across your team yet—generating major returns in the long run.
4. Involve Employees in Your Safety Planning Efforts
To truly create a safety-first workplace, you have to ensure that employees are committed to the safety measures in effect. When employees have the opportunity to express their concerns openly and contribute to your safety plan, they’re significantly more likely to follow that plan—and think more proactively about their own safety.
Not only does this approach reassure employees that their opinions and concerns are being addressed, but it can also uncover safety concerns that might have been overlooked otherwise. Allowing employees to contribute to your safety plan creates an open dialogue about safety and gives workers the chance to share their ideas, too, nurturing greater connection and transparency across your business.
Maximize Workplace Safety With Stronghold Safety Engineering
Ready to learn more about how to create a safety-first workplace that delivers better business results? Then be sure to call or message Stronghold Safety Engineering. We can connect you with all the resources you need to understand and employ the latest safety equipment and best practices, creating safer and more productive workplaces in the process.
Looking for more general information? You can also reach out to us for more tips on machine safety, how to follow an OSHA machine guarding checklist, or how to develop a safety-first mentality among your team. We’d love to help.