The Atmosphere of a Safe Work Environment

Blaine Madden
Laundry Service Team Leader

Safety is a hot button issue in the laundry industry right now. There are three ways that you can go: You can ignore safety, pay it lip service, or work to create a truly safe environment for your employees. A safe work environment is a mindset. It must be part of your daily processes. Below are four drivers that can help in creating that safe workplace.

Motivation: Motivation to improve safety can come from many different experiences. Most owners are motivated by the desire for the best for their employees. But as a manager or owner of a facility, the cost of safety incidents alone can motivate you. According to OSHA, the cost of each recordable injury can be up to $7,000. The cost to the industry is tremendous. A great way to calculate your potential costs can be found at http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/safetyhealth/mod1_estimating_costs.html. So while these costs to management can be a motivating factor, in order for improvement to actually occur, the employees must be engaged. If the employees don’t own it, it will not happen.

Education and Awareness: You may have a safety training program for new hires and safety awareness signs located around your laundry. However, do your employees really own your safety process? Or is the driving factor at your location based on their efficiency performance? Safety and performance can work together. The best resource for safety information is your employees. The only way to have them thinking about safety is to involve them though; education, increased awareness, safety committees, and continuous training.

Proactive approach: The best safety process aggressively targets hazards and eliminates them. Through the use of safety committees, your employees can identify and help eliminate the safety hazards that they come into contact with on a daily basis. With employees running your program, the issues they find will be the issues they correct, keeping them engaged in the process.

Recognition and Accountability: You catch more flies with honey. Safe behaviors and improvements must be recognized and acknowledged. (i.e. number of safe days without injury, safety process improvements, etc). Don’t stop after the accomplishment. Continuous improvement occurs when the bar is raised. At the same time, you must hold accountable those who do not follow the rules that are established. The accountability must be consistent and no one gets a free pass. A truly safe environment is a worthy and continuous pursuit.

Blaine Madden
Milliken's Laundry Service Team