How do you create a healthy workplace safety culture at your insurance agency? When you're creating and reviewing your insurance jobs, you can look at the bigger picture of how those jobs and people work together to create your workplace safety culture. How can you work together with others to create a safe workplace that supports your employees in their endeavors to remain safe?
What Is Workplace Safety?
A safe workplace is one that has fewer accidents. It's also one that feels emotionally and physically safe to your employees, improving their overall happiness and productivity. According to Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, when people think about workplace safety, sometimes they get stuck in the old 1904s mindset that "the only way to correct the problem was to observe and change worker behavior."
However, your employees' behavior is only one small part of the workplace safety equation. In fact, if you blame your employees for every workplace problem, this is demoralizing to them and can actually reduce employee productivity and retention.
Creating a Culture of Workplace Safety
Instead of focusing solely on the individuals, consider how you can create a culture of safety at your workplace instead. A workplace safety culture involves the "values, attitudes, goals, and proficiency of an organization’s health and safety program," according to the ISHN.
A workplace safety culture begins with you setting a tone of care for your employees. You should consider how all your actions will impact your employees' physical and emotional safety. Instead of being the criticizer-in-chief, you create a dialogue with your employees as well, encouraging them to come to you and talk about safety issues that they see.
Co-Creating Responsibility
In a safety culture, you can be responsible for finding problems, but you focus on dialogue, finding safety champions who can bring their concerns to you. All of your employees work together to create a safety vision for your organization, define their responsibilities when it comes to safety, and create an accountability process. Get your employees involved in creating analysis tools for workplace safety as well. In addition to getting employees involved, you can also seek external audits to make sure your workplace is safe. According to WorkSafe, "objective information may come from assessments such as health and safety management and best practice audits, compliance audits, due diligence assessments, site risk assessments, and other evaluations."
Create Multiple Methods of Communication
Employees can feel reluctant to report and discuss what feels unsafe at their workplace. You can make this easier by developing multiple ways to report, such as anonymous comments or meetings with you. Actively encourage employees to report problems rather than sitting on them and stewing. Celebrate the fact that people have reported safety concerns by publicly addressing concerns and then creating solutions together.
Are you looking for workplace resources for your insurance agency? At American Agents Alliance, we work with independent agencies like yours to help you find the resources that you need to create a more successful agency. Curious about how we can help? Talk with us today about our membership benefits.
