Four Ways to Get Staff Onboard with Workplace Safety Procedures
One of the biggest problems with safety procedures lies in the fact that they’re quite hard to practice due to the lack of motivation. After all, when everyone knows it’s a drill, it all seems less like an exercise designed to save your life and more like a distraction from your actual work. This makes your team deliberately sabotage any kind of practice, which might put them in a life-threatening scenario, should the real trouble arise. Still, leaders seldom look for excuses, which is why an efficient employer must find a way to motivate their employees to follow the safety procedures. Here are several suggestions.
1. Intimidation tactic
First of all, some people may believe that the term intimidation and the phrase workplace never go hand in hand in a positive context. This, on the other hand, is not necessarily true when it comes to safety. Speaking about motivation, there’s nothing more motivating than the desire to save your own life, however, in order for this to work, you need to explain it to your team that this is exactly what’s on the line.
We’re, of course, not suggesting that you should intimidate people with penalties if they fail to act accordingly, instead, try to show them exactly what the ramifications are of one not following the procedure in the moment of crisis. There are a lot of disturbing scenes that are a direct result of non-compliance with these procedures. Keep in mind, however, that this should only be used as a last resort.
2. Ownership boosts engagement
Most safety protocols aren’t that streamlined, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. This is useful to keep in mind, especially in a scenario where you can get your employees involved in the planning process. By giving them an active part in planning a safety procedure, you’ll make them feel in charge. You’ll make them feel like they’re the architect, the mastermind, behind this procedure, which will, in a term, make them compelled to follow it to the letter. Needless to say, this kind of intrinsic motivation will help them invest that extra bit of effort that you yourself might have doubted they were capable of.
3. Make it easy to remember
Another thing you need to understand is the fact that complex plans, even when of vital importance, tend to lose a lot of its audience somewhere along the way. So, you need to invest as much effort as possible to simplify your plan, without losing any key step along the way. One way to do so is to set checkpoints at certain landmarks. For instance, instead of setting a gathering point in the parking lot, which may still be in the zone that’s hazardous, you can set it at the fence. This is handy even for those headquarters that currently lack fences, due to the fact that they can buy temporary fencing at a relatively low price. Outside of helping with the safety procedure, this also boosts the overall safety in the office which is another huge plus.
4. Don’t overcommit to meetings and presentations
According to one survey, an average office worker spends about 31 hours each month on various meetings (about 62 separate meetings). This means that the last thing they need is another boring, repetitive presentation about abstract terms like safety and procedures. Of course, we’re not suggesting that you should skip these meetings, or presentation, as a format, altogether. Just keep these meetings short and to the point. Aside from this, try to make as much of this into a real exercise or drill. This will keep people awake and interested enough to catch an important tip, or two.
Summary
Each of these methods can indeed give an effect but their greatest strength lies in the fact that they can get combined in a single system. In other words, these techniques are in no way mutually exclusive, which will give you a chance to use them all at the same time. For instance, examples of not following the procedure can be used to keep participants alert, same as the above-discussed checkpoint system. Keep in mind that these are just some suggestions you could look into, whereas there’s so much more to discuss and consider.
