Most businesses will work hard to ensure that their safety standards are high, and that the health and wellbeing of their staff is protected. But the reality is that accidents and illnesses still occur in the workplace every day.
Some of the most common causes of workplace accidents are slips, trips and falls, lifting and handling and being struck by an object – all areas that are typically covered in workers’ health and safety training.
Assuming that the majority of these accidents will have occurred within organisations that have clear health and safety policies in place, it seems that there’s a crucial gap between health and safety procedures being known and understood by workers, and workers actually adhering to them.
While health and safety KPIs and policies are typically shared at board and team meetings, and they can be useful, statistics alone are unlikely to be enough to significantly reduce the number of accidents and near misses.
To truly effect change within an organisation, it’s vital to get under the skin of employee attitudes towards safety.
The best way to get a true measure of culture is by talking to the employees themselves, from across all departments and roles within organisation.
Data can be grouped to help identify areas where more action might be needed to reinforce policies or encourage greater engagement, be that amongst certain sites, departments or contractors.
Organisations can use these insights to create highly targeted action plans to improve adoption of safety practices where necessary.
Tips for creating a safety culture:
1. Identify teams that are embracing good safety practices to create internal champions and case studies for others to emulate;
2. Create health and safety materials in a range of formats, as different people absorb information in different ways.
We can support you in making positive changes to the way your employees perceive Health & Safety, and the benefits a positive safety culture can have on them and the business as a whole.
To discuss this further, please call 0800 083 6458 or drop us a quick e-mail to info@standerwicksafety.co.uk
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