Blog

Every business has a responsibility to minimize risks. Indeed, most industries have specific regulations to reduce employee accidents or safeguard consumers from unnecessary hazards, among other issues. Yet, it’s important to recognize that simply sticking to the letter of compliance isn’t always the most effective route to take. 

A more holistically impactful approach is to push beyond what is legally required and establish a culture of safety in the workplace. By keeping everyone meaningfully involved in safety, your company has a chance to address risks in a way that not just prevents accidents, but also safeguards your company’s reputation and productivity.

Leadership Commitment

A culture of safety can’t just be something your company subjects its staff to. Rather, it must be led and embodied by leadership, from managers to executives. Indeed, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) highlights support from organizational leadership as one of the key attributes of a culture of safety. This engagement demonstrates to employees and other stakeholders that the business has a serious commitment to safety beyond simple compliance.

So, how can leaders best embody and influence the culture of safety?

Promote a healthy work-life balance

Overwork is detrimental to a culture of safety. Unfortunately, there are significant risks involved with work-life imbalance. Not only can employees be subject to the familiar symptoms of exhaustion, but even oral health is impacted by working long hours. Stress can lead to grinding teeth, while sleep deprivation disrupts the immune system which makes it more challenging to combat oral health conditions. Employees may even skip the hydration that’s necessary for good dental and holistic wellness. 

As a result, it’s important for leaders to not just think about productivity and goals when scheduling working hours, but also worker well-being. Ensuring employees take breaks and leave on time is also vital. Importantly, you can personally represent the wellness priorities by not working more hours than you are scheduled for and taking regular vacations. Your behavior here may well influence similar actions from your staff.

Engage in regular risk assessments

Risk assessments are common compliance in any industry. However, as a leader, you can exemplify a culture of safety by not limiting your audits to those strictly required by law. This may involve daily walkthroughs of the working space to identify and address potential hazards. Performing inspections of equipment before and after use is also positive.

Importantly, be vocal about what you’re doing and why. Talk to your staff about why you’re examining specific areas of the workspace or replacing certain tools. By letting them into your way of thinking you not only highlight how central safety is to the business, but also encourage workers to follow suit.

Integrating Safety as an Organizational Value

Simply tacking safety measures on top of activities can send the message that safety is a superficial action — or even an afterthought — and is limited to specific tasks. One of the keys to a genuinely impactful culture of safety is to instead treat safety as a core value of your organization.

Some ways you can achieve this include:

• Feature safety as a value during onboarding: The onboarding process is one of the key moments to start communicating company values. Therefore, discussions about safety — physical and mental — should form part of this. Emphasize that the company’s commitment to keeping workers safe and employees’ responsibility to keep one another well is an ethical core of the brand. You can start discussing this in the interview process, outline it in employee handbook sections about values, and feature it in introductions to managers, mentors, and coworkers.

• Maintain an open dialog with all stakeholders: When integrating safety as an organizational value, the discussions about it can’t be one way. You need to encourage all stakeholders to talk about any concerns or recommendations they have. This includes staff, yes, but also consumers, supply chain partners, and visitors onto your premises.

Empowering Staff Members

Perhaps the most important part of building a culture of safety to enhance risk management is to encourage active engagement by everyone. By providing staff with the tools that empower them to be proactive in workplace safety, you make it a meaningful part of the employee experience. It also enables them to independently engage in safer decision-making.

The following elements can be part of this empowerment process.

Safety training

Providing your staff with the guidance and skills to independently thrive is one of the most empowering steps you can take as a business leader. This includes training on safety. Indeed, subsidizing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certification has various benefits beyond giving staff essential lifesaving abilities. It improves staff confidence, helping them to feel ready and able to tackle unexpected crises. They can also level up their qualifications and teach CPR skills to other staff members, helping more people to recognize emergencies and provide aid. As a result, you’re fostering a culture that’s deeply resilient to medical hazards.

Regular safety meetings

When you’re trying to communicate that safety beyond compliance is everyone’s responsibility, there needs to be formal opportunities for all staff to identify and tackle risks head-on. Holding regular all-hands safety meetings is a way to empower staff to think about risks and be part of finding the solutions. Importantly, reward your staff members when their participation in these meetings results in safety improvements.

Conclusion

Going beyond regulatory compliance to foster a culture of safety can more holistically safeguard your business from risks. This requires attention to a range of areas, including ensuring leaders communicate and embody the culture of safety and giving staff the tools to be active participants in risk management. It can take a little extra investment and planning, but it creates a framework to build a stronger and safer business on.