Create A Vibrant Safety Culture

Humans love fireworks. They’ve been around for centuries. (During the latter part of the 12th century, a spinning firework similar to one used today made its appearance.) Every July 4th, my wife Jackie and I watch fireworks in a row boat out on a nearby lake. We like fireworks because they are vibrant. Which means they are lively, exciting and effervescent. Likely your favorite part of a fireworks display is the finale, which is the most vibrant part of the show.

When something is vibrant it is attractive and energizing. That’s why the various programs at your company should be vibrant, including your safety program, so that people will be drawn to be part of the action.  Sadly, too often “safety” and the elements of a safety program such as inspections, accident investigations, safety meetings, training etc. are viewed as a boring but necessary part of business. Yes they are necessary (in most cases required by law) but that doesn’t mean they have to be lifeless.

Safety is an incredibly important and poignant subject – one that involves our survival and quality of life. So why does it get such a lackluster reputation? One reason is the goals of the program are usually based on avoiding a negative outcome—accidents. However, people are not encouraged to perform better by being told they haven’t done anything wrong which is what you are doing if you only congratulate employees for not having accidents. Can you imaging if the only praise a child got while developing was “Good for you Tammy, you only did three things wrong today, which is 40% better than your average last week.” That child would grow up paranoid and without any true sense of what it means to accomplish something positive. Turn it around, and praise people for positive actions—for what they do not what they are avoiding and right away you’ll see a change in attitude and behavior which is the main objective of every safety program—to change behavior.

That’s why I recommend to my clients that they back off using their accident/injury statistics as a gauge on when, how, and who to reward. Especially if a company already has a good safety record, minor changes in the numbers may mean a windfall for the company but it doesn’t mean much to most employees. By using positive actions as a gauge for praise (turning in safety suggestions, improved housekeeping, safety contacts, meeting attendance, etc.) instead of accident statistics, employees begin to feel like they are in more control and can have a greater impact on the company or department’s safety performance. Here are three other ways you can spice up your safety program and make it more vibrant:

Create a Fun Theme

A woman who attended my public seminar in Philadelphia last year, had just become a safety engineer at her company. She wanted to create a theme for a year that the three warehouses she worked with could adopt to make safety more interesting. Two of the three warehouses went along with her idea, which was to follow a Hawaiian theme complete with a Tiki bar, sand, posters, etc. The idea was such a success that the third warehouse (the employees didn’t want to participate at first because they thought it was corny) was strongly encouraged by the CEO to try it. When I say successful I mean not just that the employees had fun but that their accident rate dropped dramatically!

Why does creating a theme help? Because it gets people to pay attention for a while and get involved. That’s why you should change the theme once it gets stale. Or at least annually.    

Include More Than Hardhats

I was a guest speaker at a Rohm and Haas plant in West Virginia. They shut down the plant to have a safety day. Besides having all kinds of fun and inspiring events they also started a walking and weight loss competition. It was voluntary. Everyone signing up got a pedometer and the goal was 10,000 steps a day.  Now, that’s the kind of thing that gets employees to realize safety is more than just wearing a hard hat or lifting properly. That it touches every aspect of our life such as sleeping, eating, and our mental health.

When people realize that their day-to-day quality of life is impacted by the “safety program” it takes on a stronger meaning—one that will stay with them even when they are away from work.

End The Torture

If you were to poll your employees and ask them to rate their safety meetings from one to ten, one meaning the meetings are stale and boring and ten meaning they are exciting and inspiring what number would be the average? In my experience, dealing with companies in numerous industries, most would fall below 5. It doesn’t have to be that way. Any meeting can be boring. All you have to do is drone on about a topic and don’t do anything innovative or surprising. Of course that’s not what you want. What you want is to get people involved mentally and physically. There are endless ways to do that.

Here’s a simple, inexpensive way to get your employees involved in a topic during a safety meeting or training session: Pass out blank index cards and ask your audience to write their opinion about something related to the topic at hand. (Tell them not to put their names on the card.) Then collect the cards and read out loud what written on each card. Not only has everyone in the audience participated (and participated without feeling they were put on the spot) but they will also be curious of what others in the room have written which will help keep their attention. (If you’re looking for more ways to liven-up your safety meetings sign up for Safety Stuff, it’s a free e-zine I publish. Each issue includes a safety meeting/promotion idea from a subscribers. Just go to www.makesafetyfun.com to sign up.)

Like a fireworks display with it’s hundreds of shapes, sounds and colors, there are a grand number of ways to bring vibrancy into your safety program. Besides trying what I’ve recommended, why not find out what other companies are doing? Many are finding out that making safety fun is not only well, fun, but also effective in reducing accidents.