Wright Safety Solutionsestablished 2006
Wright Safety Solutionsestablished 2006
providing Health and Safety for Coventry and Warwickshire medium/small businesses
Attitudes to Safety
What if my staff can't be bothered?
So, you've got a safety policy, a safety committee or a team that knows it's safety responsibilities, and some procedures and rules laid down for the benefit of company and all of it's staff. But some of your staff are not always co-operating. Some safety shoes not being worn, some hard hats never used, guards taken off machines. What should be done?
With regards to health and safety at work it is necessary to instill a culture that recognises the importance of safety law and recognises the value of a good safety system - avoiding risk of accidents, injuries and illness. It is important to involve everyone when formulating and implementing a safety policy to ensure that the values are shared by all. A company operating in a hazardous industry e.g. working with chemicals, heavy machinery or dangerous processes, will by necessity have to regard health and safety as a priority. The employees will have to recognise this too. But a safety culture should be applied to ALL businesses
Staff morale is important, particularly when it comes to health and safety. So anyone showing a deliberate avoidance of safety procedures, repeated disregard for his own or others' safety, is breaking the law, and should be disciplined otherwise you will affect the morale of everyone else. Taking a tough disciplinary stance on safety can convince all your employees that their safety is being taken seriously. Employees not towing the safety line put people's lives at risk and indeed risk the future of the whole company.
It is very much accepted within UK industry that employees respond well when they get involved in group activity. Make the time available for team meetings and have a safety session maybe once a month or have little seminars with your staff on safety, with a quiz or anything that doesn't look like you're banging on about it. Better still, ask a safety consultant to come in once a month to do this !
Appointing an employee as a Safety Representative is also useful in promoting a positive safety culture at work; he/she can bring safety issues up for discussion, allow a balance to be sought, avoid any uncertainties and work towards closing any outstanding issues. This also should help to convince staff that the company is being managed with employees' safety as a main priority.
Contact Wright Safety Solutions for a more complete consultation with regard to Safety Management and Promoting a Positive Safety Culture at work. Getting the safety message across, even in a small/medium company can take time and a lot of dicussion - let Wright Safety Solutions do this for you. Remember a positive safety culture can save lives AND save the company.
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References:
this page first published 12 January 2007
last updated 14 February 2020
Health and Safety for Coventry and Warwickshire medium/small businesses
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With regard to the safe practices and method statements, avoid procedures that might be unnecessarily restrictive, but equally avoid a safety system that might appear to be cutting corners. Try to maintain a system that is efficient and is seen to be addressing safety issues without too much hindrance to the actual job and productivity of the company but which does not invite employees to disregard the safety issues.
