Engaging workers in health & safety
Creating and managing a safe and healthy workplace involves everyone. For workers to be truly engaged in health and safety, they need to know their employers, supervisors — and the organization — value their well-being and input.
Create and maintain open lines of communication
As an employer, your goal is to make sure workers, supervisors, and managers feel comfortable talking about health and safety.
Listen actively to what your workers and supervisors are telling you, and respond in a timely and appropriate way. If your workers know you are open to listening to, and addressing their questions and concerns, they will be more likely to let you know if there are any unsafe conditions or behaviours in the workplace.
Your workers can be your eyes and ears on the frontline to report health and safety concerns, solutions, and suggestions for improvement.
Knowledge is power
Take advantage of your frontline workers' and health and safety committee members' knowledge by including them in health and safety activities. This sends a message that safety is a joint responsibility and everyone has a role to play.
Some examples of activities to engage in together, to get everyone at the workplace thinking and talking about health and safety, include:
- Conducting workplace risk assessments
- Departmental health and safety planning
- Developing safe work procedures
- Conducting workplace inspections
- Conducting dedicated workplace health and safety investigations
- Safety crew talks
When workers are encouraged to participate and take ownership in health and safety issues, they will follow safer work practices and be more likely to speak up if they see something or experience a situation in the workplace that may be unhealthy or unsafe.
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