In spite of doing everything possible to ensure your workplace is secure, you may be overlooking an important aspect: your workers. Even the most advanced personal protective equipment (PPE) won’t do them any good if they don’t wear it as directed. The capacity of your company to comply with OSHA standards and defend against risk depends on having a system in place to ensure that your workers understand and adhere to work safety requirements.
Provide High-Quality Instruction
Employee buy-in should begin with a well-executed training program. In many OSHA rules, training is explicitly mandated, but that’s only one of the many reasons to do it. A lack of training will make it difficult for employees to adhere to your policies, and training is essential for closing the gap between what rules say and what employees really do.
It’s critical that you teach your workers how to correctly wear and check PPE, how to store and care for it, and how to properly dispose of it. Using genuine equipment and having staff reproduce the correct techniques will be more beneficial than a lecture or video, as shown by this example. You can click here to know the other importance of getting canapproval.com’s services.
The efficiency of your training should also be continually evaluated by measuring your workers’ knowledge and studying their work habits. If there are any gaps in your knowledge, it may be time for a review or retraining. The introduction of new equipment, new dangers, and/or new responsibilities in the workplace calls for the retraining of workers.
Achieve And Maintain Consistent Standards
Safety rules that are well stated and enforced are essential to a successful safety program. It’s impossible to hold your staff accountable if they don’t know what they should be doing.
Employees should be made aware of and held accountable for your company’s disciplinary rules. While a first offense or a small transgression may just warrant a verbal warning, serious or repeated violations of safety policies may result in sanctions all the way up to and including dismissal. Keep an eye on your policies and procedures to make sure they don’t punish workers for reporting unsafe working conditions. Behaviors (e.g., not wearing mandatory PPE) should be the emphasis rather than consequences (e.g., getting injured).
Involve Your Workers
Open channels of communication between workers and supervisors are essential to a successful safety program. Employees may grow scared to express safety issues or ask questions if you simply use a punishment-based approach to safety. They are the first to detect problems and report them, so allowing them to voice their concerns openly can make your workplace a safer environment for everybody.
An easy way to punish non-compliant employees is to characterize them as sluggish or disobedient and then impose punishment. Consider other possible reasons why an employee may not be sticking to your safety regulations, and you’ll have a stronger working relationship with your employees as a result. If so, how does it feel to wear it? Is it a hindrance to their productivity? A successful program will be more effective if it incorporates useful employee feedback. You can click here to gain more informationabout this matter.
You may also get your employees involved in the selection and purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other safety gear. Your employees are more likely to wear their PPE if they have a say in the selection process.
Support From A Reliable Supervising Authority Another important factor in employee compliance is support from the immediate supervisor. Supervisors have a significant influence on how workers see workplace safety since they are the ones who have the most regular and direct interaction with upper management. Employees will imitate managers if they are given the impression that safety isn’t important or if they fail to follow safety rules themselves.