Five New Years Resolutions to Transform your Safety Performance in 2023!

Breanne Murphy Safety Leadership, Workplace Safety and Health

January is the time when we reflect and make resolutions for the new year. What about resolutions for Workplace Safety and Health? Not only are people our most valuable resource, but when people feel safe, they will have a massive impact on the performance of your business. Here’s a few resolutions that can help move the needle in 2023!

  1. Have Supervisors more actively leading and responsible for safety outcomes. In high performing organizations, Supervisors are performing the orientations, coaching, enforcement, and inspections in their work areas. You might even consider adding safety metrics (KPI’s) to Supervisor performance reviews. The ‘Safety Person’ should be supporting and guiding your safety management and not taking over the Internal Responsibility System. To the extent that the Safety Person takes on the responsibilities of supervisors, a significant risk exposure is created for your company.
  1. Update your Critical Task List and make sure the corresponding Safe Work Procedures are updated or developed. Safe Work Procedures, a legal requirement, can serve your business by becoming standard operating procedures that can be leveraged as tools to effectively train your employees and scale your business. When standards are clear and workers are trained, everyone is set up to succeed.
  1. Look for more positives (vs negatives all the time). When doing inspections or site visits, what if you made an effort to look for and appreciate employees for what they are doing right?! (you would get more of what’s right). Fun Fact: People need 3 positives for every 1 negative in order to stay in a positive mindset.
  1. Use more carrot and less stick. Instead of waiting for someone to mess up and then write up an enforcement report, set goals and actively reward your team when they achieve them. For example, if your employees achieve 100% with their PME (powered mobile equipment) inspections for the month….celebrate their efforts with a pizza lunch!
  1. Implement a mental health safety plan. We all know that employees have been dealing with unprecedented levels of stress. RESILIENCE is the capacity to prepare for, recover from and adapt in the face of stress, challenge, or adversity, and its a skill that can be taught. A company’s greatest return on investment can be realized when employees learn how to respond vs react to the stressful conditions of life. Scientific studies show that it also increases hazard perception and decreases rule breaking and musculoskeletal injuries.

Are you looking to build a more effective Safety Management System in 2023? Contact us at https://1lifewss.com/1life-contact/