Improving Overall Safety Culture Still Top Priority for Safety Professionals

At the start of a new year, people often reassess both their personal and professional lives and decide what their priorities in terms of improvements will be. Will they try to lose weight or train for a marathon’ Will they aim for a promotion or learn a new business skill’

Safety professionals may use this time to set priorities for their workplace and its OHS program or safety culture.

We asked you what your top safety priority was for 2015. You said

• Improve the overall safety culture (62%)
• Improve existing OHS program (13%)
• Provide improved safety training (8%)
• Prepare for GHS/coming changes to WHMIS (8%)
• Implement an OHS program (8%)
• Other (3%).

We asked the same question last January and got similar results:

• Improve the overall safety culture (52%)
• Improve existing OHS program (25%)
• Prepare for GHS/coming changes to WHMIS (13%)
• Provide improved safety training (6%)
• Implement an OHS program (4%).

There appears to be a continuing need for improving the safety culture in many workplaces. To help you achieve this priority, the OHS Insider has many resources, such as:

• Safety culture assessment checklist
• 9 elements of a robust safety culture
• A safety culture questionnaire
• 7 keys to an effective safety culture
• ‘Transformational learning’ and safety culture
• A study that validates the importance of safety culture
• How your safety culture can impact your fine for an OHS offence
• How to use safety perception surveys to measure your workers’ view of the company’s safety culture.

For information and tools to help you implement or improve your OHS program, go to the index topic ‘OHS Programs.’

Speaking of training, incorporate our Spot the Safety Violations and Quick Quizzes into your training program.