Ways To Encourage A Safer Workplace After Safety Training
Taking a 10-hour online OSHA course is an effective way to better understand workplace safety. As soon as you complete the course, you want to think about safety in a number of ways, including giving some thought to how you can encourage your workforce to make safety a top priority. Obviously, educating those who work for you about safety, including teaching lessons on common workplace accidents and how to respond to them, is a good idea. However, you want to build a workplace culture in which safety is a chief priority. Here are some ways to do so.
Celebrate Accident-Free Days
One strategy that many companies adopt is to put up a placard that celebrates how many consecutive accident-free days the company has had. A simple design is a board with a changeable number that reads, "__ Days Since An Accident." On the first day that you put up this board, you can place a "1" ahead of the word "Days." Then, after the next day, you place a "2," and so on. This idea can excite your staff members and encourage them to always be thinking about safety so that this streak can continue.
Offer Rewards For Safety Milestones
Seeing the number of accident-free days posted on the sign in the workplace can be an incentive to being safety-conscious workers, but it doesn't hurt to take things a step further and offer rewards for the safety-related milestones that your team reaches. For example, when you hit 100 days without an accident, you could arrange a pizza lunch for everyone. When you reach 200 days, everyone could get off at noon on Friday for an extended weekend. Such practices, especially when you display them so that people know what might be ahead, can be a good incentive to be safe.
Discipline Staff For Unsafe Behavior
While it's a good idea to reward your staff members for making safety a top priority, you should also give some thought to the other side of the equation — disciplining those who behave in a manner that is in contravention of your safety policy. Whether it's someone who is blatantly ignoring safety rules in his or her daily work or someone whom you've observed to be acting dangerously silly, don't be afraid to put some disciplinary measures in place. For example, verbal and written warnings for early offenses can help to deter people from making these mistakes in the future.
For more information, take a course like an online OSHA training.