Tips for improving the safety culture in your company’s workplace
According to studies carried out by the Ministry of Social Security and the Ministry of Labor, between 2012 and 2016, around 3.5 million work accidents were recorded throughout Middle East.
In the same period, around 450,000 accidents with serious injuries and 13,363 deaths were recorded. As a result of accidents at work. Click Here for HSE Training in Abu Dhabi
Factors that, taken together, ended up generating an accumulated loss of $22.2 billion to the public coffers. These include expenses such as sickness benefit, disability retirement, death pension, among others.
As we have reinforced many times here on our blog, by law, companies are primarily responsible for ensuring the safety of their employees.
However, this is a responsibility that must be joint and shared by both employers and employees.
Therefore, all employers are required to provide training and safety equipment to their employees, when their tasks require such precautions, to keep them safe.
Tips to improve how to improve safety at work.
Reward safe behavior:
Just as gamification has become a popular way of rewarding course students.
In addition to rewards, they are also an engaging way to encourage safety in the workplace.
Giving small rewards to employees, who follow safety procedures, will give them recognition.
Which will keep them thinking about staying safe, as well as encouraging other employees to do the same.
Furthermore, requirements regarding safety in the workplace will no longer be met only out of fear of punishment, but also by encouraging good behavior.
Something that tends to make the environment lighter and the demands around security less embarrassing.
Demonstrate an appreciation for safety:
Are workers who perform their tasks well in your company praised, even if the work was carried out under inadequate safety conditions?
This is a practice that can, even inadvertently, end up encouraging a culture in the workplace, where safety becomes a lesser consideration, compared to everything else.
Instead, it’s important to recognize and reward employees who offer suggestions and opinions to get work done safely.
However, you also need to be careful to recognize that accidents happen.
For example, if a company points out that it will only give incentives if it reaches a goal of zero accidents, it may end up just rewarding a lack of information.
After all, employers may be tempted to withhold information about accidents so as not to jeopardize the end goal.
Which, over time, could increase the risk of accidents in the workplace.
Therefore, it is essential that respect and demands for compliance with safety standards in the workplace come from the company’s leadership.
This is a factor that could mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to a safe work environment.
Demand a safe workplace:
Labor law makes it very clear about the worker’s right to refuse when they are exposed to unsafe conditions in the work environment.
However, this is also the employer’s role, who must ensure a safe working environment and allow the service to be carried out only when the conditions for carrying out the work safely are guaranteed.
The employer must explain to his team that there is always time to do things safely and that it will never be acceptable to work in an unsafe manner.
But just talking is not enough.
So, practice what you preach. Workers will always support your vision of workplace safety, only if they believe it is real.
Look for ways to improve workplace safety:
Every company looks for ways to achieve faster results at a lower cost.
But this search cannot be a reason for an unsafe work environment.
Therefore, while seeking to increase your company’s productivity, place a similar emphasis on finding ways to eliminate risk in the workplace.
Invest some time with workers, discussing ideas for improving the safety of the work environment and then act to put these suggestions into practice.