Make safe working a culture
When you get into your car, you automatically put your seat belt on. You don't think about it. And if you forget it once, it immediately feels strange. Your car and your partner remind you of that belt, after which you are soon safe behind the wheel again.
That pattern is interesting because it has an important foundation: culture. Culture is anything produced by society (as opposed to nature). It is also described in this context as the atmosphere and traditions or customs of a particular community.
So in this case, the community of motorists has developed a habit of buckling up. Motorists do so because they agree that it is safer. That consensus was not formed, accepted and lived through in a few weeks. It took decades and lots of different campaigns, fines and developments.
Safety, health and environment(SCC) in your company
You can also translate this metaphor to safety in your business. A construction helmet and steel toe caps are really good ideas for a construction site. If you're unloading from your trailer with a crane, it's helpful to know that you have to stamp. How do you get your employees to embrace safe work practices and consistently behave accordingly? You can't do that by just putting a bill with safety rules on the bulletin board. It really takes more than that. A culture of safe working must be carefully and consistently developed over time.
Why is a safe working culture important?
It is worth investing in a culture of working safely. A strong safety culture helps reduce risk and prevents accidents and injuries. A safe work environment makes employees feel comfortable, which improves their productivity and morale. The more accidents you can prevent the better. Because accidents can lead to expensive claims, costly repairs and damage to reputation. Speaking of reputation, companies with a strong safety culture more easily attract customers, partners and talent who value safety. So count your winnings.
How do you create a culture of working safely?
You don't build a culture of safe work practices overnight. With consistency, leadership and commitment, you can lay the foundation for a work environment where everyone does their job safely and with confidence. The question, of course, is what do you have to do to make that happen?
First, it is wise to put safety, health and environment(SCC) on the strategic agenda. That is, name safety as a core value in your company's vision, mission and goals. Integrate safety into your company's policy documents and processes. That way you make sure it does not become a stand-alone topic. Is that done? Then include the topic of safety in regular meetings with and presentations to your colleagues to discuss the subject.
Next, you can show leadership by leading by example yourself. You do this by committing yourself and your management to consistently follow and promote safety rules. Show visible commitment, for example, by attending safety rounds or training sessions yourself.
Involve employees and continuously train and inform them. Ask your employees to help think about how safety can keep improving in your company. Often employees have a very concrete view of safety because they know their own practices best. Organize regular safety training, both for new employees and for existing teams.
An important aspect is also to ensure an open reporting culture. Make sure your employees do not feel inhibited to report unsafe situations, near misses and incidents. You can organize this by guaranteeing anonymity but especially by approaching reports positively. If incidents or near-incidents are reported, reports should always be followed up and fed back, so that employees see that their input is taken seriously.
Finally, it is essential to conduct regular audits and inspections to verify compliance with safety rules. Evaluate incidents and use the insights to adjust processes and behaviors.
The help of your digital QMS is indispensable
A digital quality management systemQMS) is indispensable for embedding safety in your corporate culture. In the ISO2HANDLE platform, you will find a lot of functionality that will help you work on safety.
Sharing information
Information related to security is something you want to document well so that it has a permanent and findable place. That place always contains the most recent information. This is important the moment you start sharing that information with your employees. In your ISO2HANDLE platform you will find extensive possibilities for document management and sharing with colleagues. Detailed version management takes place on each document. Also standard processes can be designed in ISO2HANDLE and easily shared with colleagues from your platform. To those processes you can add links to specific documents (e.g. safety manuals), other processes or registration forms. That is the power of a digital system.
Encourage notifications
In ISO2HANDLE, your colleagues can easily make reports via their computer or smart phone. For example, reports of incidents, near-misses, deviations, points of improvement and non-conformities. These reports can be cleverly organized so that they are immediately forwarded to the correct operator. If a handler does not pick up a report, you can have automatic notifications follow. In your reports overview, you can see immediately if reports remain unresolved for too long. As quality manager, you can then choose to intervene manually. In your dashboard, you see a status overview of all your calls and can click through to each individual call for more information.
Training the people
Training is also part of increasing safety awareness and essential skills. In your ISO2HANDLE platform, you easily set up course offerings for each employee and automatically invite the employee to attend a scheduled training. If your colleague does not complete that training on time, he or she will automatically receive notifications. And again, you can manually intervene if it takes too long for your colleague to pick up a training course.
Inspections ongoing
From time to time, you want to take stock of whether safety rules are being followed via an inspection. With the smart forms in ISO2HANDLE, you can record literally everything that is important in terms of safety in your company via your tablet or smart phone. And by everything, we mean everything. Because you can set up the system yourself without any technical knowledge so that it is exactly tailored to your company.
Visualizing safety
Of course, you also want to have a visual picture of how safety is going in your company. Are all the gauges still green? Your ISO2HANDLE dashboards bring safety into focus. You can also easily share them with your management and with your colleagues. That's a great way to give feedback and encourage your colleagues to do just that little bit better the next month.
The ISO2HANDLE SCC toolbox is full of tools to help you get safety on the agenda and in the minds of your management and your colleagues. Want to learn more about how our platform can help you achieve your quality and safety ambitions? Then request a short online demo of 30 to 40 minutes. This is completely non-binding and will give you great new insights.
