Creating an effective workplace safety culture

One of the keys to maintaining safety at work lies in developing and promoting a safety culture within an organisation.

This can be done in a multitude of ways, but the most crucial element of any successful safety initiative is finding effective techniques to get all staff on board.

Initiatives such as the Safe Work Australia Workplace Participation Reward, held during Safe Work Month every year in October, are designed to get organisations thinking about safety and the approaches that will work best within their workplace culture.

The 2016 winner, Bedford Group, ran a campaign aimed at raising awareness of health and safety matters that can contribute to a positive and preventive safety culture. The ‘Bedford Safe’ (BSafe) vision was designed to encourage staff to think about their commitment to safety at work, including the choices they make each day to carry out their work safely.

“The campaign used a variety of mediums to create a sense of fun and really involve our employees to carry the BSafe message and develop responsibility for safety,” Bedford Group Risk Manager Tricia Gilroy said.

“Photo boards were introduced to serve as a daily reminder of why we want to go home safe, with workers adding photos of family, friends, goals and pets.

“A simple ‘See something, say something’ BSafe motto was adopted, encouraging workers to speak up on health and safety observations and concerns.”

One of the Bedford Group ‘BSafe’ posters.

To ensure a smooth rollout of the program, training sessions were developed for each department. These included an introductory BSafe video that featured employees discussing the reasons why they want to ‘BSafe’ at work.

Bedford’s successful reward and recognition program was also created to reward safe behaviour and recognise individuals proactively looking for ways to make the workplace safer, while encouraging their workmates to do the same.

“Those recognised appear in the monthly BSafe Newsletter and on noticeboards sharing the wonderful stories of achievement, which have been warmly received and act as a talking point among workers,” said Gilroy.

The 2015 winner of the Safe Work Australia Workplace Participation Reward, Mars Petcare Australia – Wodonga factory, also went to great lengths to involve its staff in a safety campaign. In order to achieve maximum team participation, Mars Petcare engaged an external marketing expert.

“The campaign was developed after undertaking a survey with our associates,” Mars Petcare SES/Lean Manager – Manufacturing Glen Cuthbert said.

“We wanted to find out what the perceived barriers were, how engaged associates were in safety, where some of the knowledge gaps may be and also what messages might resonate with them.”

A large number of employees working at the Wodonga factory have known each other for many years and are connected by strong, positive relationships. The company consequently chose to utilise these workplace friendships in its safety campaign, highlighting the core premise that ‘If I see something is unsafe, I’m going to speak up because … mates make sure mates get home safe.’

While there were challenges along the way, Cuthbert believes that engaging an external consultant to project-manage was the best decision they could have made.

“Not only for the dedicated resource on the task, but also the external perspective that was brought to the table. You only know what you know, and as OHS ambassadors, we’re not experts in the area of marketing and branding — it is a very different skill set.”

On the other hand, Lendlease Communities took the approach of collaboratively developing safety initiatives amongst its business and communities. The company hosted a Family Safety Day as the centrepiece of its campaign, focusing on the importance of family and lifestyle values.

A poster developed by Lendlease as part of its safety campaign.

“Ultimately, to achieve the best result, you need diversity of thought, fresh approaches and ideas that are aligned to the core values of why it is so important to remain safe at work and at home,” Lendlease Managing Director, Communities Matthew Wallace said.

The biggest challenge encountered by the company was logistics, as well as ensuring consistent messaging and participation across a wide range of people and communities.

“Senior leadership participation was critical in setting the culture and approach around the month of initiatives to ensure our people understood the purpose, significance and opportunities to contribute and make a meaningful difference to their own lives and the people that work with us,” said Wallace.

Likewise, Howe Farming Group, winner of the 2014 Safe Work Australia Workplace Participation Reward, implemented a safety campaign across multiple sites.

“As our organisation is quite large and spread across different facilities and locations, the challenge is to make the program easily executable and something that our staff will participate in,” Howe Farming Group Managing Director Dennis Howe said.

“There was a level of apprehension when we first started the Safe Work Month, but after a few selfies, some stretches and some encouragement the staff were very involved.”

The company put simple but effective activities in place, designed to raise awareness of some of the key health and safety issues experienced by their staff, including sun safety, avoiding musculoskeletal injuries, healthy eating and nutrition, and emergency first aid. Activities were designed for each week of October, with themes being drawn from an analysis of injuries that had taken place on the farm over the past five years.

With a workforce comprising 45% backpackers, limited awareness about the dangers of the Queensland sun led to a day of ‘mad hat’ wearing to lift the profile of skin cancer avoidance. Using the slogan ‘Any hat is better than no hat’, Howe Farming staff entered a competition for who could wear the ‘maddest’ hat at each banana farm.

The Howe Farming Group ‘mad hat’ campaign.

Warm-up and stretching exercises were introduced to increase worker flexibility and reduce injury, while talks were held about nutrition, and healthy eating was introduced across the company.

“Staff had no option but healthy options from the cafeteria supplies, as healthy wraps, focaccias and smoothies were on the menu as soft drinks and chocolate bars disappeared,” said Howe.

“Our team is now more aware of all the topics that were presented and could understand why things happened the way they did on the farm.”

National Safe Work Month is held in October each year.

Top image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/aquarius83men