Someone recently asked Janet Keyes, CIH, and the primary trainer for CHESS, about the most important rules for developing an effective safety program. Here are her five key points:
1. Make the program fit your company. Every company has its own culture, language and style. Your program should fit your needs.
2. Get top management buy in and support. If top management isn’t on board, it is much more difficult for your safety program to be effective. Employees follow the lead of their management, for good or for bad.
3. Plan to spend more time on implementation than on program development. It is one thing to develop your program and outline your goals, but it takes more effort to make it all work.
4. Communicate: make sure those affected by the program know what they need to do.
5. Get frontline supervisors’ input and buy-in early on. Frontline supervisors are the ones who must enforce safety.
If you want more information on effective safety programs, please contact us.