How to Join the Safety Culture Movement: Part 5
Train Your People
Turnover negatively impacts organizations in many ways – especially in terms of Safety Culture. It is very difficult to create a cohesive team environment if people aren’t around long enough to cultivate the feeling of togetherness and to forge a common goal. The quality of an organization’s Safety Culture will be decided by the sum of its parts – the collective dedication of the entire workforce.
So, if longevity of employment is key to a strong Safety Culture, how do we get people to stick around and stay invested in the goals and aspirations of the organization?
Training, training, training, and then, more training. One of the best methods to ensure people want to come to work is to prove to them that they are a valuable member of the team. What better way to achieve this than investing in their continued development?
Ensuring the members of your team have the skillset necessary to match the progress and aspirations of the organization is not only a sensible approach for the overall financial wellbeing of your business – it’s just good practice for assuring your people feel taken care of.
When organizations make the choice to continually develop their people, it sends two important messages:
1) We care about your personal and professional growth and development – and we aren’t intimidated by the career opportunities these added credentials provide you.
2) We are committed to improving your skill set because we want to target loftier goals for the organization.
Refrain from holding back on developing your people for fear they will leave because of the opportunities their upgraded skill set affords. If you see this as a potential, you should shift your focus away from withholding training and reassess the culture and environment of your workplace. There are more serious problems afoot if you feel you need to spend your time hindering the workforce’s progress in an attempt to limit their options. And, often, this approach will achieve the opposite of the intent by expediting and strengthening the turnover rate.
The belief in a strong Safety Culture is, “everyone wants to go to work, do their job well and get home safe.” Training your people is key in upholding this belief. The workforce will want to come to work if they are appreciated, invested in, and challenged. They will do their job well because they will be trained to conduct their work at a superior level. And, they will get home safe because their training will guide their behaviour and actions in a safe and positive way.
If you are among the leaders who have committed to continually training your workforce – keep it up! Only good things can come to organizations that roster extremely work-competent individuals.
By chance, if you are asking yourself how you can diversify and enhance your approach to training, there is a practical solution. Providing your people with the know-how to efficiently execute their work is great. However, what if you took it a step further and instilled the reasoning behind the training? If workers not only had an interest in improving their skill set but were also given a reasonable explanation to drive home the importance of training and how it relates to their safety, and that of others – the commitment to and understanding of the training would be augmented.
The Safety Culture 100 online course provides organizations with a positive mindset toward training and results in added value for your workforce from any and all subsequent training.
For further guidance on joining the Safety Culture movement, click any of the below links:
