When it comes to the workplace, it’s essential to encourage and enforce safety among employees to create a more comfortable and secure environment. However, it can be hard to keep your employees engaged in safety training.
When your employees are not committed to establishing a safe work atmosphere, they put themselves and their co-workers at risk for potentially serious accidents. So, understanding the different ways to keep your employees engaged in safety is essential.
Consistent Reinforcement
Consistent reinforcement is one of the many things you can do to keep your team engaged in safety.
Reinforcement can be done in a variety of ways, such as using personalized incentives, providing daily safety reminders, putting up safety signs, and placing safety-related items within the workplace. By doing this, it encourages your employees to want to participate in safety protocols, which can have a lasting impact on the success of the company.
Monarch Landscape Management reinforces the importance of safety to their employees by encouraging them to bring pictures of their family members and placing them at the main entrance and back patio. The hope is that this method will influence their employees to practice good safety for the sake of their loved ones.
“This is just a constant reminder of why we work and why we work safely so that we can go home at the end of the day to our friends and family and loved ones in the same condition we came to work that morning,” says Jodi Joseph, account manager at Monarch Landscape Management.
Reward Employees for Safe Behavior
Offering your team rewards for practicing safe behavior can be an excellent incentive.
Green Lawn Fertilizing rewards their employees monthly and annually depending on how safe their driving is, which they can record through the GPS tracking device Azuga. They measure hard breaking, speeding, sudden acceleration, and idling to determine who will get rewarded for their safe driving skills.
On a monthly basis, the program recognizes the top ten safe drivers and rewards the first driver with a $100 e-gift card, and the last driver with a $25 e-gift card. On an annual basis, one person will receive an F-150 truck for practicing safe driving.
“This truck is a great reminder each day when 150+ team members start up their vehicle, to be a reminder to drive safe,” says Matt Jesson, president, and owner of the company. “This incentive reinforces that goal.”
Hold Regular Safety Meetings and Trainings
It can be beneficial to employees to be consistently reminded of safe practices in regular meetings and safety trainings.
Every Thursday at 6:30 a.m., Monarch Landscaping Management holds safety meetings with the entire team to discuss a different safety topic each week. At the end of the meeting, the team is presented with three true or false questions to ensure they were listening.
To keep the team more engaged during meetings, they kick a soccer ball around in a circle, and whoever it was kicked to had to answer a true or false question. Later on, gift cards are rewarded to the team if they answered the questions correctly.
Monarch also engages its staff in safety trainings to enhance their knowledge on how to stay safe and the correct way to follow safety protocols.
Supervisor Support
The biggest and most influential way to keep employees engaged in safety is by providing your support.
Your employees are receiving praise and reinforcement from you for practicing safety, so it’s crucial that you are just as committed to safety as they are. Showing them how involved you are can increase their interest in practicing safety, making it easier for you to keep them engaged.
Join NALP’s Safe Company Program. It will help you build a stronger safety culture which will help you reduce injuries and hazards, demonstrate your commitment to a safe workplace, and lower your costs.
