Is A Safety Culture Really Worth It?

A safety culture is an organization’s purposeful commitment to overall safety for everyone. Beyond mere safety training, a safety culture emphasizes the importance of safety on the job every single day and involves every single person valuing these standards.

You may think that your current safety training is doing a great job, so is creating and maintaining a safety culture in your workplace really worth it?

How does a safety culture work?

The top causes of workplace accidents, injuries, and fatalities are human error, technical/mechanical malfunctions, and organizational factors.

By developing a safety culture, the human errors and organizational factors can be drastically reduced. Why? Promoting an overall company culture that is devoted to safety for everyone will cause employees and employers alike to pay more attention to all factors and prevent these accidents from occurring.

The organization itself should never be to blame for employee injuries. By establishing and promoting a safety culture, the organization does everything in its power to ensure that facilities are well maintained, employees are properly trained, leadership is setting a good example, and the safety culture is maintained to the highest standards.

What are some major benefits?

• A strong safety culture is an indicator of good management. By demonstrating solid attention to detail and conformity to safety excellence, the management and organization as a whole conveys a positive image to other organizations, customers, and future employees.

• Employees’ on-the-job environment plays a huge role in retention. Not only does a safety culture keep current employees happy and healthy, it also boosts the attractiveness of future job openings.

• Costs are reduced across the board. Medical expenses and workers’ compensation are reduced due to a lower injury rate, and higher employee retention reduces the cost of hiring and training new employees.

Should you create a safety culture in your workplace?

You should! These are just a few of the benefits of a strong safety culture, and there are many more to be found. Remember that a safety culture is multifaceted—it’s not just about training and keeping the books marked accident-free. It’s a commitment from everyone to value the safety of each employee above anything else.

It’s not a change that will happen in one day, but it is possible to get everyone on board. Check out our blog post on how to create a safety culture in your workplace today!