In many workplaces, safety is often seen as something for the management and OHS officers to worry about. While rules and procedures can get you halfway there, it’s only when employees take personal responsibility for their own safety and that of their colleagues that a truly safe workplace comes to life.
This means after acquiring high-quality PPE overalls and working boots from RS or other suppliers, you still need to cultivate a culture of personal responsibility so that employees know what they need to do and even look out for others.
Why you need a culture of personal responsibility
Many workplace incidents happen because employees ignore procedures or take them lightly. Naturally, employees who do repetitive work can become overfamiliar with their tasks, causing them to get complacent and cut corners.
However, when workers understand that their behaviour can affect their team members’ safety, they start to make better decisions. In addition, employees who take personal responsibility are likely to challenge unsafe behaviour from their colleagues, reducing the need for supervision. This significantly brings down the costs of workplace incidents.
Making safety everyone’s business
Many companies today either lack or have forced protective safety cultures in the workplace. Safety officers are seen as enforcers who spend most of their time trying to catch employees flouting safety rules rather than educating them on the importance of wearing safety gear and observing safety precautions. If an incident occurs, managers then respond by introducing new policies to try to prevent it from happening again.
While these cultures can help reduce injuries, they often alienate employees or leave them confused by ever-changing policies.
If you want to encourage personal responsibility, safety must be presented as a shared priority and not a top-down directive. Without overbearing enforcers, workers take greater responsibility for their own safety and that of everyone on the construction site or warehouse floor.
Once this happens, workers will see their choices, such as wearing appropriate PPE or maintaining equipment, as a responsibility to their team and act responsibly.
To achieve this, companies must invest in training and education. This will help workers understand why wearing suitable workwear is necessary and not just what the rules are. Once this happens, employees will take safety precautions even when the task seems routine.
Empowering employees to speak up
You must talk with your employees. If they feel comfortable speaking up, they will feel confident reporting hazards, near misses, or damaged equipment. And when management responds quickly and positively to concerns, it shows employees that the company cares and is not just worried about OHS fines.
Another way to strengthen accountability is by encouraging workers to stop a task if they believe it is unsafe. This tells workers you trust them and shows them that their safety is more important.
Lead by example
There is probably nothing that can discourage employees from taking personal responsibility for their safety more than seeing management flout the same rules they are supposed to follow. It kills all initiative and makes workers question the importance of the safety precautions in the first place.
Make sure you and other team leaders consistently follow safety procedures, wear suitable protective gear, and address safety concerns promptly. Every now and then, you should also hold safety conversations with workers and remind teams that safety is a shared responsibility.
Building everyday safety habits that stick
Policies and training sessions will lay the foundation, but the real safety consideration is done in the small, repetitive actions that workers take throughout the day. The quick check before switching on a machine, checking whether the gloves are torn, or just clearing a loose cable from the way.
During your team talks, encourage workers to treat the various safety checks like a part of the job, not an extra step. Try to make it a habit for everybody to do pre-shift inspections, tidy up workstations, and properly fit PPE. Over time, it will build a rhythm where looking out for yourself and your coworkers feels natural and build up a safe workplace.
