5 Tips to Improve Your Workplace Safety Culture

We all know it can be dangerous to reward fewer recordables. Workers tend to underreport their own accidents and may even pressure each other to keep incidents to themselves. But if you reward near miss catches instead, you’ll have workers on the lookout for unsafe situations – upping everyone’s vigilance, keeping your workplace safer, and fostering a proactive safety culture. Have a monthly drawing of these and either pick individual winners or even recognize whole departments for special attention.

Many safety managers have a rule allowing workers to halt work and reevaluate how things are being done if they see a safety issue. You can reinforce and reward this behavior by documenting these stop stories and reading them at your next toolbox talk or safety training. It not only recognizes good safety practices and gives a pat on the back to observant people, but it also helps other workers to identify future problems and know that it’s okay to speak up.

Switch up your recognition program to keep people interested and make it fun. Make one month Near Miss Madness and put a special emphasis on workers catching unsafe situations. Or pick a day of the week and have Full-Gear Fridays with a small reward for workers who have all their gear on right without cutting any corners. You can keep these events consistent or make new ones to address specific problems you’re dealing with on your job site. If you’ve found too many workers with safety glasses on top of their heads, have Two Important Reasons Tuesday and add new eyewear reminder posters or hand out cool safety glasses that workers will want to wear. Use your imagination to make everyone safer!

It’s popular now to call workers Industrial Athletes. And while this is pretty accurate, the rules for your workers aren’t quite the same as the rules for sports athletes. You might not be able to require your people to do exercises before they start the day, but you can make it worth their while and even use a little gentle peer pressure. Hold mandatory meetings before work starts with an optional 10-minute warm-up. Offer perks like lunch tokens or special coffee at the end for those who did it. Participants get bragging rights about being in good shape (and drinking good coffee), and non-participants might just be bored enough while they wait to go ahead and join in. You can create better attitudes and reduce the likelihood of muscle strains at the same time.

Show your workers you care about their comfort and health as well as their safety. Contract a local orthopedic doctor or ergonomist to come in and walk your plant or job site. They can spot ergonomic or environmental problems in the way people are doing their jobs and recommend improvements. It’s also an opportunity for your people to ask questions and get advice on avoiding injuries. This kind of special care and attention to taking care of one another is infectious and promotes keeping everyone safer.