Ways To Encourage Employees To Follow Health And Safety Procedures – According to a 2019 report from Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Gallup, a staggering 340 million occupational accidents occur each year around the world. Furthermore, each year, around 2.78 million worker fatalities are caused by workplace accidents and work-related diseases.
That should make you sit up and take notice of just how important health and safety procedures are at the workplace. The report also states that the workdays that are lost due to occupational accidents and diseases account for nearly 4% of GDP, which works out to about $3.2 trillion.
So, health and safety issues not only cause serious injuries and diseases to many employees each year. They also cause major financial damage to companies. The good news is, by ensuring your employees follow your company’s health and safety procedures, accidents can be avoided.
4 Different Ways To Encourage Employees To Follow Health And Safety Procedures
Here are 4 different ways in which you can encourage your workers to follow your procedures for health and safety.
1. Thoroughly Train Your Staff
The number one way to encourage your employees to follow your health and safety procedures and ensure they do indeed follow the procedures you have in place is to thoroughly train them.
You should always hold in-person training sessions for new workers to ensure they understand your health and safety policies and know what to do to stay safe and what to do if they spot potential hazards.
Giving out manuals alone will not cut it, as there is no guarantee that your employees will thoroughly read the materials you provide. It is up to your company to not only provide employees with health and safety information and protocols but also ensure that they understand the procedures and follow them.
It is a good idea to hold a test or quiz at the end of a health and safety training session to make certain all new employees understand the information they have been given. You should also hold reminder training sessions intermittently for all employees to ensure they have not become blasé about procedures or have forgotten key information.
2. Make Your Health and Safety Training More Personal to the Employees in Attendance
During the training sessions, you should make the information you provide more personal and realistic to the employees in attendance. When you demonstrate how a specific type of workplace accident could affect an individual employee, his or her colleagues, and his or her family, you will be able to drive home your message of the importance of following health and safety procedures much more effectively.
For instance, you could cite an example in which someone slips and falls on a wet surface and ends up being permanently disabled. Your employees are then more likely to take health and safety procedures seriously.
3. Lead by Example
One way of encouraging your workers to follow the health and safety procedures your company has in place is to lead by example.
For instance, if your protocols state that all employees should pick up any items they spot in walkways that could be hazardous, such as loose cables, you need to ensure you follow those protocols when you spot something like a loose cable in a walkway.
If you do not, you will not only be dismissing your own health and safety procedures. You could also make your employees think they do not have to bother about following those procedures themselves. In turn, it is much more likely accidents will happen.
So, make sure that you and all management-level professionals lead by example.
4. Reward Positive Behavior
Another method of encouraging your employees to follow health and safety procedures is to reward positive behavior.
For example, you could hand out engraved acrylic awards to employees who spot and deal with a potential hazard or go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the workplace is a safe environment.
Conclusion
Quite simply, the more focus you place on your health and safety procedures, the more you can ensure your employees follow the protocols you have in place.
So, make sure you encourage your employees to follow health and safety procedures by:
- Thoroughly training your staff.
- Making your training more personal.
- Leading by example.
- Rewarding positive behavior.
