June is National Safety Month, and if you are a safety professional, or just want to improve safety at your workplace, you should be participating.
Safety at work is always important, but this is an ideal opportunity to remind your employees about safe behaviors and start an open dialogue. A safer workplace environment means happier, more productive employees and more success for your business. Here's how you can benefit from participating.
Remind employees of safety procedures
For everyone to be productive at work, it's important that each employee is familiar with the required safety procedures for the job they are doing. Unfortunately, when you are busy, it's easy to let those things fall by the wayside. National Safety Month is the perfect opportunity to schedule time for safety reminders and updates. Re-familiarizing your employees with important safety concepts will reduce injuries and property damage in the workplace, saving everyone stress, money, and time.
Start an open dialogue
One of the most important aspects of a safe workplace is that employees feel like they can speak up when there is a problem. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen in every workplace, particularly in high-pressure environments. During National Safety Month, be sure to give your employees the opportunity to bring up their concerns, talking with each other and with management about them to find solutions that work for everyone. It's also the perfect time to reiterate who employees can talk to when they do have concerns.
Show employees that they are valued
It's crucial that your employees feel like they are valued by the organization. When employees feel undervalued, they are less productive and are much more likely to leave the company. National Safety Month shows them that you care about their experience in the workplace. Taking the time to acknowledge your employees in this way shows them that you care.
Improve safety for customers
If your business is customer-facing, it's equally important that your customers feel safe and comfortable during their experience with you. National Safety Month is also a good time to brainstorm ways you can make your customers feel safe, and address any issues that have come up in the past. You can also reiterate to your employees why customer safety is so important to increase awareness of the problem.
Get involved
There are many ways you can celebrate National Safety Month in your office. Start by putting up posters and other reminders around the office to get the topic of safety on everyone's mind. Each week of National Safety Month has a different theme - hazard recognition, slips and falls, fatigue, and impairment.
National Safety Month also provides online resources like videos that you can share with your workforce. To get people on board, you can also host a social gathering, where you have a discussion about workplace safety, and celebrate your successes together. You can also go out of your way to recognize employees who have been diligent with their safety practices.
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