How to Join the Safety Culture Movement: Part 3
Inform Workers of Their Basic Safety Rights
The Right to Know, the Right to Participate, and the Right to Refuse unsafe work – these Basic Safety Rights are highlighted in Module 2 of our Safety Culture 100 Course. If you’re wondering why we chose to allot precious time to readily available information in our 20-minute course, you may not be alone. But the answer is simple – the genius in these very basic rights has yet to be exploited (and, wink-wink, nudge-nudge – we want you and your people to benefit from these hidden gems).
By reading the other instalments in this “How to Join the Safety Culture Movement” series, it will be evident that the belief in a strong Safety Culture is – everyone wants to go to work, do their job well and get home safe. We can only be as strong as our weakest link, so everyone must be fully committed to this belief. That said, for this belief to stick, those leading the charge must embody this belief in their actions. It is sort of like a “chicken or the egg” dilemma – which one comes first?
This is where the Basic Safety Rights come in. They act as an assist for the Safety Culture “hearts and minds” campaign. For the workforce to place any stock in the beliefs, attitudes and practices that form a strong Safety Culture, they must be provided with a reason to trust that leadership intends to see the cultural shift through. With the Basic Safety Rights as your vehicle, you can effectively gain the ear of your workforce.
People need a reason to dedicate themselves to specific beliefs, attitudes and practices. Of the many reasons you can provide, the most effective may just be to show the organization genuinely cares. How you choose to communicate the Basic Safety Rights will indicate to the employee the level of effort you’re willing to put into the elevation of Safety Culture.
If you read the Basic Safety Rights to your employees like they are being Mirandized, or if you hand them over on a sheet of paper and say “sign here,” you’ve just willingly turned your back on a huge opportunity to stimulate buy-in. On the other hand, if you spend time discussing the rights openly and you convey your passion toward their importance, you may have just extended the reach of your strong Safety Culture by creating another set of eyes and ears, dedicated to the initiative.
In general, we all want to be part of something great. The biggest pitfall in the improvement of Safety Culture is dictation. At all costs, we should avoid creating any sense of separation in safety. The goal of a continually improving safe and healthy workplace must be a team effort, on the face of it.
When an organization stands behind the Basic Safety Rights, and honestly advocates for their implementation, workers feel like leadership has their back. Suddenly, health and safety isn’t something that’s mandated upon them, but something they have an extremely active role in – working shoulder to shoulder with all levels of the organization toward a great place to work.
Reassess how you’re communicating the Basic Safety Rights. If you continually show that you support them 100% and believe in the benefits they provide – good for you! Keep it up. If you’re concerned about how you’ve delivered the rights up to this point, don’t fret – just remember, we should be looking to activate each member of the workforce as an advocate for a strong Safety Culture. The best way to do that is to continually establish that we are all in this together.
To read the other articles in this series, click below:
