October is Safe Work Month (unless you’re a WHS professional, then every month is Safe Work Month) and the perfect time to remind your employer of the best work health and safety practices.
If you’re scratching your hard hat on what to do, we’ve come up with some ideas for Safe Work Month that won’t be forgotten once 1st November rolls around…
1. Conduct a Safety Climate Survey
Gathering feedback from your employees is an great way to show you care and address the key issues affecting your team. It’s also a useful tool to assess whether there’s a disconnect between your leadership team and frontline workers when it comes to WHS communication.
Customisable climate surveys provide both qualitative and quantitively insights. You can discover if a process is effective. Does your team feel safe to speak up? Do they feel empowered? Do they need additional training in a particular area?
This brings us to the next idea…
2. Launch a Content Hub Full of Resources
With an abundance of safety content available, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Create a page on your company’s intranet or send out a newsletter featuring your key policies and procedures, handy articles and free resources – all in one easily accessible place.
3. Hold a Lunch and Learn (and put on the lunch)
It’s true: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Give your team a free lunch and educate them about a critical risk in your industry or workplace. It’s really important that when having these conversations that they are just that: conversations. Make sure it’s an open discussion, a two-way conversation where everyone can share thoughts and ideas.
4. Explore Training Courses
Whether it’s safety, leadership or safety leadership, up-skilling your team benefits everyone. It could be a webinar, an online course or even a 5-day course. Choose a training option that’s suitable for your team and budget, or explore custom options tailored to your workplace and specific risks.
5. Bring Mental Health to the Forefront
With psychosocial risk now a key component in WHS, shine a spotlight on mental health – October is also Mental Health Month. Buddy up with HR to combine the two topics with some initiatives like:
- Give out free coffee vouchers so people can take a break, find a buddy and go for a coffee to check in with each other.
- Organise a breath work or meditation class.
- If it’s been a while since your last employee engagement survey, now might be a good time to resend one.
- Reminding employees how to access your EAP, or setting one up if you don’t have one.
6. Search Industry Bodies for Resources to Share
If you’re a member of an industry body like CCIWA, Mates in Construction or AIHS, you may already have access to useful recourses or events. Take some time to browse their websites to see if there’s anything that could benefit your team.
We hope this list has given you a few ideas for Safe Work Month. It’s best to implement something that is measurable or tied to milestones so you can track progress towards bigger goals.
If you need help executing any of these activities or want us to manage them for you, reach out to our team today.