In previous blogs, we have talked about the benefits that employees and companies have when safety comes first. The reality is that workplace culture plays a key role in these results. According to Deloitte, 94% of executives and 88% of employees in the US believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success. Having this in mind, how can we build a good safety culture at the workplace? And what does that exactly mean?
First, culture in business is defined as the atmosphere generated by shared beliefs, values, practices and attitudes in an organization. When it comes to safety culture at the workplace, it means the results of these factors. For example, the way your employees and customers perceive a safe atmosphere in the working environment, when employees do their work in a safer manner without supervision, how safety procedures and changes are managed by owners, as well as the commitment set for safety to be everyone’s job.
But which elements are necessary to create a safety culture at your workplace? What takes it to the next level?
We asked a group of safety professionals to tell us what makes a good safety culture in their workplace. Here we have summarized our main findings:
Management commitment
Almost all safety professionals agree with this point. It is essential that managers show support and commitment because they are in charge of making decisions when implementing safety systems and improvements to create safety culture within the company. According to professionals, safety culture must start from the top and extend down to the bottom of workers.
Leadership
Sometimes, executives and supervisors think they are exempt from the rules. Leading by example, listening openly to employees' concerns, communicating better with them and being an inspiration to employees to become better are some key parts of leadership for building a good safety culture.
Employee buy-in
How employees accept to support and participate in changes and decisions regarding safety at the workplace is critical for success. However, this depends on how consistent you are in what you are saying in order to make employees believe in your leadership. We recommend that you to take a look at our previous blog How Employee Engagement Leads to Workplace Safety Excellence.
Values and attitudes
When an organization has a set of values and attitudes in its culture, it is more likely that employees make the right decisions because it represents a guidance of their work day by day. For instance, when there is an environment of transparency, employees are well-informed about how to prevent infectious diseases, conduct safety inspections and report potential risks.
When we know what influences attitudes and behaviors at the workplace, we can get significant results when it comes to health and safety culture at work. Also, we believe that having the right resources, tools and equipment add value when employers decide to strengthen safety culture according to company’s needs.
Kwema builds safer workplaces by providing safety wearables to employees who are exposed to potential risks and hazards at their job every day. Our safety devices activate an emergency protocol alerting safety supervisors or 911, and are designed to avoid adoption hurdles and training costs.
Watch how Kwema is disrupting workplace safety
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