6 Strategies to Improve Worker Safety Attitudes

1. Talk about safety. The more you talk up the importance of safety, the more you encourage discussion about safety at the management level, supervisory level, and employee level. The more you talk about safety, the more you generate interest, inclusion, and the sharing of information. Just talking about safety draws attention to it and makes it important. It’s small wonder that in the safest workplace, people are always talking about safety.

2. Encourage safety suggestions. On a day-to-day basis, who knows their jobs better than the workers who perform them—especially the most experienced and skilled ones? Listen to them. Encourage them to talk to you about their ideas (big or small) for making their jobs and other workers’ jobs safer. This approach not only produces some excellent ways to improve safety conditions and performance, but it also involves employees in the improvement process.

3. Act promptly to correct hazards and improve safety conditions. Whenever you identify hazards or employees bring them to your attention, act promptly to correct the situation. Then take it a step farther and try to create an even safer situation. If you don’t get in there and fix safety problems—even the minor ones—right away, employees will think you don’t care, so why should they. If you ignore safety problems, so will employees.

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BLR’s OSHA Training System offers dozens of completely prewritten, affordable program to handle your OSHA-mandated training, promote good safety attitudes, and keep your workers safe. Try it at no cost. Get the details.

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4. Provide excellent safety and health training and information. Make sure employees have the skills, knowledge, and understanding they need to work safely and avoid accidents. Well-trained employees quickly develop good safety attitudes and make safety a priority. And by the way, that’s where BLR can help, with OSHA Training System and all our other excellent safety and health training programs.

5. Reward safe performance. Catch workers doing something safe and make a big deal about. Praise safe performance loud and clear for all to hear. When workers who have bad or so-so attitudes see that others are getting recognition for their good attitudes, they’ll want to get in on that, too. Also make it very clear to employees and supervisors that safety performance is a key part of employee performance appraisals. When employees realize that raises, promotions, and other rewards depend on having a good safety attitude, they’re going to take workplace safety more seriously.

6. Set a positive example. Make sure that managers and supervisors throughout your workplace set a positive example and always exhibit a good safety attitude. Workers will notice and emulate their safe behavior.

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Try OSHA Training System for a complete solution to your mandated training needs. You can do so at no cost or risk. Read more.

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Safety Training the BLR Way

Developing and maintaining good safety attitudes among employees is vital to the success of your safety and health programs. But it’s only one of many training concerns.

As its name implies, OSHA Training System is a complete system to meet your full safety and health training needs, from attitude to zero accidents. All the materials are prepared in advance, so no prep time is required. All you do is reproduce what you need and put it to use.

Materials include:

• 32 complete safety units, meeting every key OSHA standard. Each includes full background for trainers, a ready-to-use safety meeting, and follow-up handouts. View a Table of Contents.
• Quizzes, handouts, and copies of 27 different employee booklets, coordinated to the safety meetings. (Booklets can be bought in any quantity at a discount.)
• A complete training recordkeeping and tracking system that tells you which employees need what training, and then tracks your program to ensure they get it.
• Quarterly updates, included with the program. You receive at least 4 new safety units every 90 days, covering new OSHA standards and training needs.

If you share the common problem of never having enough time or the right materials for training, we’d suggest you examine the OSHA Training System program. We’ve arranged for you to do so for up to 30 days at no cost or risk. Just let us know and we’ll be happy to make all the arrangements.

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