Did you ever see one of those calendars with
all the special days listed on it? It seems like there’s a special month, week
or day for just about anything you could imagine. Take today; not only is it
Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, it’s also National Plum Pudding Day. Seriously, I
couldn’t make that up.
At Sentry, we are in the business of safety –
every day – continually providing and developing impact resistant products and
collision warning systems to protect people, equipment and facilities. It’s what
we should be doing. The focus on safety in the workplace isn’t confined to a special
month, week or day – it’s an everyday thing. It’s that important. Expectations
of working in a safe environment should be a given.
So, how do you make it work? You’re the
designated Safety Coach in your organization. That role is probably one of a
few that you juggle within the company; each one of them is a priority. The
safety program can’t miss. It needs to be comprehensive and it needs to work. First,
recognize you can’t do it by yourself. Great plans are not developed in a
vacuum. Establish a team for support, perspective, insight, buy-in and
implementation.
Next, you need a well thought out plan; a
strategy; a road map to get you to your goal. Think about it; if you don’t know
where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
A successful safety strategy requires specific
elements. For example, what’s the overall goal; who will be in charge; what
resources do you have; what obstacles do you face; who needs to know about it
and how will they get the information; how do you measure it and what will
success look like; how do you sustain the momentum? It’s like putting together
a puzzle; if you don’t have all the pieces there’s a gaping hole in the
picture. When it comes to safety, gaping holes are definitely not a good thing.
Safety is a process, not an event. It takes
planning, hard work and an everyday focus. It’s that important and it’s worth
it.
Now, how about some plum pudding?
Posted by MJ Thomas
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