Safety culture is a collective philosophy and mindset that revolves around safety and accident prevention. It's nice in theory, but many employees disregard it as soon as they start doing actual work. What steps can you take to make sure that your safety culture sticks in the minds of your employees?

Initial Education and Training

Much depends on your initial education and training. This may be the first time your employees are introduced to the concept of a safety culture, and it's certainly going to be the first time they engage with your organization on safety-related matters.

Providing better, more serious education and training ensures that your employees take safety culture seriously and are better capable of retaining the information you provide to them. These are some strategies that can help you do it:

  •       Follow formal processes. First, make sure you follow formal processes. For example, you can get your employees formally forklift certified. When you have formal processes in place, employees are much more likely to take the course matter seriously and it's far less likely that trainers or educators will deviate from established curriculum or neglect elements that are important to teach. Additionally, having formal processes in place allows you to train and educate your employees much more consistently – and it gives you an audit trail to ensure that all your employees were properly trained and educated on safety matters.
  •       Appoint and condition good trainers. It's also important to have excellent educators and trainers in place. In fact, you may even want to develop a training program for them, specifically. The people in charge of teaching about safety culture should take safety very seriously, they should be clear and effective communicators, they should practice empathy, and they should be able to engage with people of many different learning styles. The more effective and flexible they are, the better.
  •       Check in to verify understanding. Don't just talk at your employees. Follow up with them and engage with them to verify that they understand all the critical components of your safety culture training. You can quiz them, follow up with them in conversation, or just observe them to make sure they adhere to critical safety components.

The Workplace Environment

There are also many things you can do to improve the workplace environment and make it more supportive of safety culture values.

  •       Make safety part of your core values. Company core values make a big impact. If the importance of safety isn't already a part of your core values, consider making them an addition. This way, new hires researching the company for the first time will understand how seriously you take safety – and all your existing companies will be much more likely to fall in line with this standard.
  •       Display reminders of safety culture everywhere. Similarly, it's important to display reminders of safety culture everywhere. Posters, warning signs, and subtle visual reminders keep safety top of mind and help establish your entire workplace environment as a safe space that respects workers. You can also issue audio reminders with periodic conversations and check-ins, as well as announcements that the entire workplace can hear.
  •       Lead by example. People are much more likely to conform to safety culture when they see their leaders doing the same. Accordingly, you should be very judicious about the supervisors and leaders you have on the floor. If all your top leaders make safety a top priority, and they consistently make sacrifices in other areas to uphold your safety values, your employees will likely follow suit.
  •       Praise and reward adherence. When you see workers making decisions in favor of safety, especially when those decisions are hard, praise and reward them – and do so publicly. It's a way of gently reinforcing this desired behavior while motivating others to follow similar behaviors in the future.
  •       Impose disciplinary action when appropriate. New hires are bound to make at least a few mistakes. But when you know errors are being committed on purpose, or when the mistakes become egregious, it's important to impose disciplinary action.
  •       Set and report on goals. Organizations have much more consistently good safety performance when they set and report on goals. For example, you can set a goal to have zero workplace accidents and injuries for a given period of time – and then, hopefully, celebrate together when you achieve that goal. If you fail to achieve a goal, acknowledge it and analyze why.
  •       Stay active and agile. In many business environments, safety culture is something that requires ongoing attention, maintenance, and improvement. Accordingly, you should adopt an active and agile mentality with respect to your safety culture. Listen to feedback and be willing to make changes to make your environment even safer.
  •       Encourage honesty and transparency. Finally, encourage everyone within your organization to be honest and transparent. This way, everyone feels comfortable voicing dissent if any safety standards are being ignored or brushed over. Transparent workplaces also offer other rewards, making employees feel more comfortable and better integrated.

Creating a safety culture is relatively easy. Making it stick is significantly harder. But if you're willing to put in the effort of resculpting your company culture, creating better formal training programs, and following up by making modifications to your workplace environment, it should be much easier to keep all your employees on the same page about the value of safety.