How To Implement New Safety Rules In 4 Steps

One of the things that 2020 taught us is the fact that while we focus on giant safety issues, it's way too easy to miss out on basic ones.

Most people have learned the hard way to start taking safety seriously. However, there will always be people who do things differently even if their lives depend on playing it safe.

If you have team members who fall into this category, you will want to take safety trainings and let them have a solid idea on what they need to do in cases which require actions regarding safety.

But how do you make sure that they make use of the training you have provided for them? That is where the real issue lies. In healthcare, while people like to think that they know the right thing, they often do not know much.

Usually, the first step to boosting safety is writing down a list of rules and explaining how they should be implemented. Some companies usually go as far as getting a safety memo delivered to employees. If you want to go this route, it should not be hard. For easier and clearer communication, you could get an essay writing service to take care of it for you and deliver it through Ving.

Your first step when it comes to preparing safety rules for your employee is finding out what your staff’s definition of safety is. Whatever safety programs you have in store for your staff, you have to make sure that they understand that these rules have to stay implemented.

While safety rules all over the world are mostly the same, safety in healthcare cuts across both patients who are placed in your care and the safety of the staff therein. Neither of both categories should ever be caught in an unsafe situation. There are tips for safety for health workers and for patients as well, which the health workers would have to implement.

However, the first order of business is: how do you make sure they remain safe? How do you implement new safety rules?

→→ FREE DOWNLOAD: EBOOK: How To Turn Your Safety Program Into A Full Blown Safety Culture

Here are some tips to guide you:

Have Them In Writing

Have these rules written down and sent to all of the employees. You could also have copies of them pasted on the walls of every department and even the restrooms. Make sure that at every turn, your employees are reminded of the safety rules they need to follow. Reading them out or having a seminar about them is not enough. They need to have it in writing and unless any of them cannot read, they will have no reason to default. Written rules are harder to ignore, especially when they are everywhere around you.

Start Rewarding

After the training has been done, it is natural to expect that the staff will be instinctively pushed towards safety. You will be disappointed and sadly so, because they are humans and sometimes, humans forget. However, you can make them intentional about these moves, by closely monitoring them and rewarding the most consistent ones.

Be careful not to make this a usual thing. Make it a random habit. The element of surprise is greatly needed to pull this off. If they can predict when your reward comes, they will practice safety when they see you and deviate when you are not there. This is dangerous because people’s lives are dependent on their adherence to safety rules.

Have Regular Inspections

People do not like being watched, generally. However, you must watch them. The equipment they use, the way it is handled and how it is stored should be inspected regularly. Everyone knows that it takes two weeks for the coronavirus to fully manifest in the body of a person. However, it takes only a few seconds to come in contact with this virus. One careless second and everything goes to pieces. You have to regularly check how they are with these pieces of equipment to ensure that they are practicing safety. Remember that people's lives are dependent on the handling of those tools.

Have Meetings About Safety Regularly

They did say if you repeat something well enough, people might just start getting the message deeply enough. They will hate these meetings but have them anyway. Make them all say out the rules, pick out situations where they defaulted, openly correct the defaulters, and reiterate that these mistakes cannot repeat themselves.

Also, openly praise those who carried out safety practices the right way within the week, and hand their rewards to them in front of everyone. Remind them as sternly as possible about the damage that would come from not obeying the safety rules.

Final Thoughts

Remember that people’s lives depend on your ability to successfully implement these rules. No matter how hard it might seem to get adults to do the right thing, do it nonetheless. Eventually, they will thank you for it because you did them a favor. Implementing these rules is for the good of everyone, and hopefully, these tips would help put you on the right track.

Amanda Dudley is a top-level editor at EssayUSA. Her experience as a writer has given her the required expertise to work on complicated tasks. Amanda also heads a team of professional writers dedicated to providing unparalleled quality in terms of content.