Building a Safety Culture to Enhance Workplace Safety

As facility employees work to keep up with the demand amid a labor shortage, issues in your safety plan might make their way up to the surface. Safety should always be the top priority when working in facilities management, and without a comprehensive safety plan, a facility could be placing the people working hard for them at risk of injury.

Every industry should have a clear and concise plan for safety. It will act as a foundation of a high-performing organization so you can streamline work, maintain operations and most importantly keep your workers safe and your facility compliant.

Here are a few great ways to begin engaging your team, driving participation and adopting a better safety culture within your organization:

Discuss Safety Regularly with Management Teams. Setting up regular calls specifically to review safety gives your team the tools for safety success. The goal isn’t just “work safely today,” it’s about actionable advice to improve your facility’s safety collaboratively with input from your teams. This prevents relevant information from being siloed and disseminates it with the people who most need to know.

Highlight and Reward “Moments of Courage.” Everyone should feel empowered to call out safety shortfalls when they see them. Making sure your team knows to address safety concerns and establishing that there should be a safer way to move forward. Working with safety challenges head-on, from all levels, is a great way to find areas of improvement and prevent accidents.

Empower Employees with a Stop Work Authority. This is another way to empower your service professionals in the field and let them know their voice and their gut’s guidance matters. If anyone on your team sees a job that’s been misquoted, a task that would be best supported by a second person, or any situation that feels unsafe, they should have the full authority to stop work, call a supervisor, and come up with a plan to do the job safely.

Implement Routine Field Observations. Your management team should schedule surprise visits to the site to check on everything and everyone. This should cover 80% of your service professional headcount each month.

Being able to communicate with your team calmly and professionally will give your business the foundation it needs to succeed safely. Understanding and creating a plan for your business needs is the first step in getting employees across the board accustomed to and willing to engage in safety checks. People will always feel better working when they know their safety is the core of your business.

Listen to our webinar replay, Taking Your Facility Safety Culture to the Next Level, to learn more about how being proactive enables a culture of safety and security.