This week is Health & Safety Week throughout the UK, and as you can probably imagine, we at Label Source will be watching the conversation surrounding this event with great interest as the week unfolds. According to SHP Online, the focus for Health & Safety Week 2016 is 'inspiring excellence in the profession', specifically by recognising the people who strive to achieve excellent H&S standards within their organisations.
Of course, providing a safe working environment is the responsibility of the employer first and foremost, but this does not mean that workers should not be encouraged to contribute to health and safety culture within the company. Here are some suggestions for improving company-wide engagement with health and safety practices:
- Reward workers for their initiative. The 'Employee of the Month' award is a common motivational gimmick, but instead of simply handing out a monthly award to the person who did the best (a nebulous standard if ever there was one), why not recognise and reward workers specifically for their ongoing contributions to health and safety? You could even offer a monthly prize (e.g. a gift voucher) to encourage workers to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities to improve workplace safety.
- Organise a health and safety presentation (to be delivered by your employees). Lecturing your workers on health and safety protocol tends to be a tedious experience for all involved, so why not flip the script and encourage a group of employees to put together an informal presentation based on their own research and ideas? This is a good way to get your employees thinking more carefully about H&S measures and how they are deployed throughout the company, and talented staff members will be able to deliver a presentation that gets the whole team interested too!
- Include your staff when carrying out/renewing regular health and safety measures. Excluding those who are directly involved in the running of the company, most employees don't think about H&S very often because it's not part of their job. The resulting apathy towards H&S can be countered by getting workers involved in the day-to-day management of the company's health and safety system - possible examples include asking employees to order any new safety labels that may be required, enlisting them to help with informal risk assessments, or even just regularly reminding them of established protocol (e.g. via fire drills and refresher training).
- Quiz your employees! There are probably safety signs and hazard notices dotted all over your workplace, but do the people who use the premises on a daily basis actually know what everything means? To find out, organise a quiz like this one - offer a prize for perfect scores, and give everyone time to revise and brush up their knowledge beforehand!
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