Getting workers engaged in safety  

 

Promoting safe work habits often involves more than just having your workers complete hours of safety training. Often, lectures just aren't enough to get concepts to stick. Getting workers out of training and into real situations is a great way to put safety into practice. According to "Safety Compliance Alert," here are some practices companies have found useful in keeping their workers safe:

 

 One company decided to make forklift safety a game. It created a timed obstacle course where workers have to maneuver their forklifts through different tasks, while avoiding safety violations. The game teaches workers to slow down, pay attention and get the job done safety and efficiently.

 

Another company knew an OSHA inspection could occur at any time, so it decided to prepare itself with that in mind. It looked on OSHA's website to see which hazards the agency seemed to target the most. Then it found and corrected these hazards at its work sites. By thinking like an inspector, the company made its workplace much safer.

 

Although a company had a positive safety culture, workers sometimes grew complacent after performing the same repetitive tasks day after day.  To help these workers stay alert, the company implemented a stretching program. Before a shift begins, workers perform a series of stretches together to put them in a safety mindset for the rest of the day.

 

Another company's workers learned about correct PPE use during training but were still choosing the wrong gear for various jobs. So the company put all its PPE in a central location and hung charts showing which PPE was required for different tasks, along with what protections the gear offers. The info didn't stick in training, but seeing the gear along with the protection it provided got workers engaged and wearing the right PPE.