2. Encouraging Communication
As we’ve already established, getting buy-in from staff is vital to the success of health and safety within any organisation.
If you already have a motivated workforce then your job is easier. But if you are facing resistance – the dreaded “health and safety is nonsense” attitude – then you have a tough job on your hands.
Here are some tips about building good communications in an organisation.
Means of communicating
- Noticeboards
- Posters
- Suggestion boxes
- WhatsApp groups
- Intranet
- Telephone calls
- Formal meetings
- Informal meetings
- Social events
Methods of Communicating
Let your employees talk first: give them the problem and ask them for ideas for solving it. Tell them that you need their expertise and welcome their help. And don’t throw out your own solutions – that will put them off contributing.
Use an open-minded approach: if someone shares an idea that’s different from yours, how should you react? If you’re defensive you’ll shut down the conversation. So start by just listening to what they have to say and be encouraging. Tell them that you think it’s an interesting idea and you’d like to discuss it further.
Encourage innovation: new employees have “fresh eyes” and can often see areas where improvements can be made. Tap into this and you’ll find a rich source of ideas. Employees who have been in the job for a while can be afraid of rocking the boat, and it can be harder to get them to open up. You can incentivise them by rewarding good ideas or by having a competition for who can come up with the best suggestion to make the workplace safer.
Use their ideas: if they come up with good ideas, put them into practice! Give recognition to the individual who came up with the idea. If it’s appropriate, give them the responsibility of putting the idea into practice.
If you use these tips, you’ll create a culture of openness and creativity.
Company Culture
Make sure senior managers and directors know what you are doing, and ask them to adopt the same practice in their teams and areas of responsibility. Your job will be much easier if encouraging communication is a company-wide activity rather than restricted only to health and safety!
Health and Safety Myth
Receptionists told to start wearing steel-capped safety footwear
Receptionists have been told they have to wear safety footwear - steel/plastic capped work shoes to work on reception. Their duties include: answering phones, post, errands, computer use. The employee wanted to know if this change in policy was as a result of any new health and safety office guidelines.
There have been no new HSE guidelines issued which go into the specifics of what safety footwear should be worn or where. Whether or not protective footwear is required should be assessed on the basis of risk, and this has to be done in the individual workplace. If the employer has recently changed their policy, this should have been properly discussed with employees including explaining the reasons for the change, i.e. the employer should have consulted and communicated with the workforce!