When striving to gain a sense of competency in your business, our minds can easily go towards health and safety, but with health and safety comes a whole heap of red tape that we feel we need to comply with. But this doesn't necessarily give us a deep ingrained sense of safety on a cultural level.

Incorporating a culture of safety in our business is a tough road because we need to ensure that people prioritise safety and use it as a tool to work better without thinking it's just a pile of rules and regulations. But how do we incorporate a culture of safety into our businesses? It's about the following strategies:

Valuing Safety

Safety should be a core company value, and this means placing it as a high priority and making it a concern for everybody in the business, rather than just those who can be injured as a result of unsafe actions. Risk assessments are one of those practices that invariably give people an understanding of what can and cannot go wrong, whether it is in the guise of geotechnical engineering services helping construction-type businesses or in another industry. 

The importance of valuing safety should be part of what makes your company who they are. Therefore, we must involve everybody as part of a company-wide initiative, from workers all the way up to managers, and help workers to make key decisions within the safety strategy process and provide a forum to openly discuss any concerns, ideas, and achievements.

Set Goals

Establishing realistic and specific goals for the organisation is pivotal and should be measurable. Every member of the business should gain a feeling of accomplishment if they undergo safe practices. While we can incorporate targets at this juncture, it's always worth following the SMART protocol for setting goals, especially if you are already doing a good job of running a safe and secure ship. 

Practising safety is something that shouldn't be a box-ticking exercise, but must be rewarded. The subject matter can invariably be dry, which doesn't help engage employees in any single way, and this is why we should always work to provide rewards and establish specific safety goals for the business that will invariably help the organisation work towards the right targets and celebrate small achievements along the way.

Offer Training

Of course, training is one of the most fundamental tools for giving your employees the power and autonomy to make decisions that affect them, but in the realm of safety, we should train new hires and existing staff in the same way, as this will work towards creating a culture of safety by way of expectation. Training the older, more established colleagues is arguably more important, especially if you are now attempting to make a number of changes within the business. They will invariably stick their heels in or feel that it's too much hassle or effort, but we need to offer thorough safety training to all employees and give everyone an understanding of why we're doing this. 

The big problem with mandatory training is that it becomes a box-ticking exercise, which is why it has to be an engaging training session. Every member of staff needs to understand procedures, risk mitigation techniques, and hazards that are relevant to their roles. If we understand what we do in relation to the big picture, we will have a thorough understanding of the organisation. So rather than just focusing on the role, give them a great ability to see how being safe in a certain sector can truly keep the business afloat while also keeping safety practices up to date.

Encourage Employee Involvement

Employees can easily be at arm's length in so many different areas of the business, and this is why we should always give our employees the opportunity to provide their input, especially in safety-related matters. If we don't see what happens in a certain department on a daily basis, we won't have a proper understanding of what we should be doing. Those employees are our eyes and ears, and therefore we must give them a mouthpiece to voice all of their concerns in a constructive manner. From there, we can create safety committees comprised of staff from different departments, and this can encourage them to provide their input in relation to safety matters. 

We should also focus on clear communication channels that should already be part of our strategy, but this is why something like an employee handbook that is constantly being updated will be an invaluable tool. Lots of employees don't know what they can access or what they should be doing. Therefore, we need to place greater importance on how employees can be the figurehead of change in their own departments.

Foster Continuous Improvement

If we regularly conduct inspections, audits, and incident investigations, this is a very effective approach to identifying where we can do better. Ultimately, we should have a comprehensive approach to safety that doesn't just involve regulations or red tape but allows employees the opportunity to speak up and give everybody who interacts with the organisation the wherewithal to explain how they feel. 

Actively seeking feedback should be a part of our company regardless, and when we ask our employees what they think and implement changes based on lessons learned, this increases the level of employee engagement on a subject matter that can run the risk of being as dull as ditch water.

Lead By Example

It's about having that continuous conversation and remembering that operating with a safety mindset on a cultural level is about giving them a practical example that they can mirror. If we demonstrate safe behaviours as leaders, we reinforce the importance of safety throughout the organisation.

When we incorporate a culture of safety into our business, there will be a number of positive effects, but while many companies still view regulations as being one stream of red tape too far, you've got to tackle it in the right ways to embed it on a cultural level. These things take time, of course, but they will make all of the difference.