Do You Have A Safety Voice?

What is a safety voice?  Does your business have one or even need one?

A safety voice is the voice that is heard from your business and it’s management that communicates your views of safety to your workforce.  Determining if you have a safety voice is as simple as asking the question “Do my employees and contractors understand what I want of them in relation to safety?”.

If you have determined that you are confident that your safety priorities are being heard…consider what you are communicating.  Without realising it you might be giving an impression of being safety  “relaxed” if you are just paying lip service to safety communication but are not backing it up with action, management support and site controls.

There are a number of ways in which you can communicate your safety voice:

• Toolbox meetings, management meetings and regular shop floor discussions on safety practices.
• Provision of systems and resources.  Believe it or not, if you do not prioritise providing resources to safety, then it really doesn’t matter how loud or often you harp on about working safely, your staff will be looking to see if you are really practicing what you preach!
• Training, training, training!  Companies that only provide a once yearly (or less frequent) induction or training can be sure that their safety voice is likely to be ignored or not even heard!  Using online learning tools such as Rapid Induct to place all safety alerts and safety induction training online can ensure your safety voice is heard throughout the year.
• Management of incidents.  When incidents occur, are you ensuring there is a process to follow up the incident and apply the corrective actions?  By formalising this process and using health and safety management systems to help you better manage incidents, you can be sure that workers will be hearing your message that safety is important.
• Contractor management software.  Don’t forget that contractors are workers too and can significantly impact the safety of your workplace.  If you want to be sure your safety voice is taken seriously then ensure your communication plan includes a method of communicating your safety expectations to your contractors.

For assistance with communicating your safety priorities and requirements look no further than the Rapid Global suite of software.

Contact us for further information today.