Adopting a Health & Safety Culture at Work

A good health and safety culture at work seems to have no less than a domino effect. It is as important as employee engagement programs, perhaps even more. The impact of such a Safety Culture is long-lasting. It is not only about encouraging them to take responsibility for their own safety and health but also driving them to take responsibility for the health and safety of those around them.

Your organisation's Health and Safety Culture must flow down from the top. It must start from the highest authority, flowing downwards towards the employees. Only then will you be able to make the most out of your program. Another thing to note about safety culture is that you should ensure that it is not only papers. This means ensuring that your employees actually practice safety behaviours and try their best to meet the set standards. You may wonder: How do you adopt a Health and Safety Culture at work? Let’s look at some ways you can establish and adopt a good health and safety culture.

Ways to Adopt a Health And Safety Culture

In order to ensure that your employees adopt the practices, you must start from the grassroots levels. Following are some ways you can cover all the relevant aspects of health and safety culture at your organisation.

1. Teaching What

When you introduce a health and safety culture to your organisation, it may be likely that your employees are completely unaware of what it means. Hence, you must first start by explaining what a health and safety culture means and what it includes. 

2. Focusing on the Why

Every action starts with a why. If you do not know why you are doing certain things, you may not do them wholeheartedly or you may stop doing them after some time. Understanding the reason behind putting some health and safety practices in place is necessary. Once your employees understand “why,” they will be better able to focus on “how.”

3. Addressing How

After clearly stating what is a health and safety culture, and why your employees should adopt it, it's time to teach them how to go about it. You can do so via online training programs, offline training sessions, group discussions, group activities, and more.

Online training is more flexible than offline training sessions. Your employees can rewatch the tutorial videos en-number of times and learn at their own convenience. It saves you the money you will otherwise be spending on the necessary infrastructure for offline sessions. Furthermore, offline sessions will also require you to coordinate all your employees’ calendars so that all of them are available at the same time. However, if you wish to break it down for different departments, you are free to do so. But keep in mind that it will require double the resources.

Once your employees have completed their theoretical learning, you must also give them practical experience. This can be achieved by role plays and drills. It will allow them to put their learnings into action and teach them how to act appropriately during emergencies.

4. Audits and Updates

Keeping your employees well informed of the latest practices and changes in relevant laws will help you maintain your health and safety culture. You can do so once every 3 or 6 months. Additionally, you must plan surprise audits at least twice every year by an external third party. A third-party audit will give you a reality check on your standards and practices.

Adopting Safety Culture With British Safety Council India

Everyone needs a partner to become a better version of themselves. This partner helps you evolve, supports you in your transformational journey, and guides you on the right path. The British Safety Council can be your partner in creating and sustaining a Good Health and Safety Culture.

They offer consultancy services in collaboration with Tribe Culture Change to help you develop, maintain and improve your safety culture. The program will help you reduce potential accident rates, employee turnover rates and improve your employees’ morale. Furthermore, it will also ensure that your employees are keeping well, physically and mentally. Partnering with BSC means that your organisation’s safety is in safe hands!