This article relates to the Safety and Working Environment competency and explores how your employees feel with regard to their physical and environmental working conditions, the quality of their equipment and tools, and overall attention to safety within the workplace. Every organization is responsible for ensuring the health and safety of their employees. An unsafe working environment can lead to accidents, lawsuits, and missed work. Such incidents can result in significant costs to your organization. The questions included in this competency will investigate whether your staff is satisfied with the organization's facilities, whether they believe business is being conducted in a safe manner, and if the tools and equipment provided are adequate to successfully and safely complete their jobs.

This article, Improving Workplace Safety, is part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales From the Corporate Frontlines. It tells how a company, shaken by a workplace accident, made a concerted effort to improve workplace safety conditions and enjoyed multiple benefits as a result.

Anonymous Submission

Improving Workplace Safety

For a small business owner like me, creating an accident-free workplace is a huge undertaking. Recently, I discovered just how important an undertaking it was. Insurance is expensive enough these days, and I had been trying to do everything possible to keep premiums down. I have a limited number of employees, so it's crucial to maintain a high level of productivity. At the end of every month, I would breathe a sigh of relief when we avoided unnecessary accidents and the resulting down time.

Then, two years ago, one of our employees was involved in a serious accident. She was hospitalized for weeks and the line she worked on was closed for inspection by insurance adjustors and further inspection and repair. At that time, I decided that an in depth review of our company safety procedures was in order.

The first thing I did was to complete an employee survey. This helped in several respects: employees gave feedback about the work environment and pointed out areas where safety concerns existed, and it gave them a useful way to help make sure that a similar accident would not happen. Once the survey was finished, a memo was circulated to remind employees that their reports of any safety concern at any time were most welcome and appreciated.

Using the feedback gained from the employee survey, I determined which basic safety training areas needed to be revisited. Some of the newer employees had not yet completed the mandatory training, and the long term workers had done it so long ago that they would surely benefit from a review. So we set up a schedule and everyone underwent job specific safety courses.

Finally, the employee survey indicated that an employee safety incentive program might go a long way toward preventing future occurrences. I considered the cost versus the benefits, and decided that the idea was worth a try. We began with a monthly incentive program that awarded a small merchandise prize or a gift certificate for a local business. Then we added a prize for workers that were accident-free for a specific period of time. Some employees felt that we needed to post reminders, and they created posters. After a while there was a contest for the most creative idea and best artistically rendered safety poster. There were also periodic pop quizzes on safety procedures with prize rewards.

The total company process of improving our workplace safety resulted in more than just fewer injuries. The effort produced a team spirit, employees enjoyed a safer environment, and morale received a boost. Add in greater productivity and savings on insurance premiums, and both company and employees were big winners.

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Josh Greenberg is President of AlphaMeasure, Inc.

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