Executive Insights

How Do You Create a Culture of Safety in Your Laundry Facilities?

 

“To establish a culture of safety in any workplace the first step is to ensure that there exists an environment of trust. Trust is integral in all organizations to maximize performance and meet expectations. Employees must believe that the supervisors and managers are truly concerned about their health and safety or else any attempt at establishing a culture of safety will fail. Employees who do the work must be empowered to have input in solving workplace hazards. Safety is not limited to the workplace. The organization must consider how an injury on the job will affect the individual’s home life and make that connection apparent to the employees. Once that connection is made, the organization must explain the safety process so that the employee will take ownership of his/her behavior.”

—Don Bock, Principal | Seabright Safety Solutions Inc. | Santa Maria, CA

“It is important to first understand your current safety culture. Does safety become a priority just when a safety event occurs, injuring employees, damaging property or your company’s reputation? Is it driven by compliance to avoid costly fines? Is your culture a set of shared attitudes, beliefs and practices demonstrated by management and employees at all levels of the company? An effective safety culture connects everyone in the company to a common set of beliefs, goals and elicits safety buy-in from employees.

A safe culture should be evident at all levels, and it should have but is not limited to the following best practices.

• Safety Vision: Establish, and communicate a clear vision and set of values that prioritize safety.
• Safety Goals: Establish leading and lagging indicators. Leading indicators are typically those that focus on prevention such as safety audits, observations and training compliance. Lagging indicators measure the occurrence and frequency of events.
• Management Commitment and Employee Involvement: Management must always lead by example and demonstrate their personal concern for employee safety and health. Involve employees in identifying and resolving safety and health problems.
• Communication, Education and Training: New employee safety training, job-specific safety training and communication via safety meetings, safety huddles and visual aids.
• Identify and Control Hazards: job-safety analysis (JSA), worksite inspections and behavior-safety observations.
• Safety Policies and Procedures: Have guidelines for how to manage all safety matters in the workplace, and procedures for common tasks (LOTO, confined space, emergency evacuation, etc.).

A safety culture should be continually evaluated and will grow out of an organization’s continued commitment to safety.”

—Mike Altendorf, Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety | PureStar Group | Las Vegas, NV

“Fostering and building a culture of safety involves several key steps:

1. Leadership commitment: Leaders must demonstrate a commitment to safety and prioritize it as a core value. This includes setting expectations, providing resources and actively participating in safety initiatives.
2. Team member involvement: Team members should be actively involved in the development and implementation of safety programs. This can include participation in safety committees, providing input on safety policies and procedures, and reporting safety concerns or near misses.
3. Communication and training: Effective communication is essential for creating a culture of safety. Regularly communicate safety messages, policies and procedures to all employees. Provide comprehensive safety training to ensure that employees have the knowledge and skills to perform their work safely.
4. Hazard identification and control: Encourage team members to identify and report hazards in the workplace. Implement processes for assessing and controlling hazards, such as conducting regular inspections, implementing safety controls and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) where necessary.
5. Accountability and recognition: Hold everyone accountable for following safety protocols and procedures. Recognize and reward individuals and teams for their commitment to safety and for taking proactive steps to prevent accidents and injuries.
6. Continuous improvement: Regularly evaluate and review safety performance, identify areas for improvement and implement corrective actions. Encourage feedback from everyone and use it to drive ongoing improvement in safety practices.
7. Learning culture: Foster a culture of learning from incidents and near misses. Encourage open and honest reporting of incidents, investigate root causes and implement measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.

By implementing these steps, organizations can create a culture where safety is a shared responsibility, and everyone is actively engaged in promoting a safe work environment. It also doesn’t happen overnight. There will be steps forward and multiple steps back, these need to be acknowledged and learned from. Most importantly, you have to have a heart. A genuine care and concern translates to trust, which builds a safety culture to withstand any growth or decline in any company.”

—Shelley Buchaus, Director of Health & Safety | Division Laundry & Cleaners Inc. | San Antonio, TX