Warehouse Safety Topics: Create a Culture of Safety

A culture of safety is an intangible thing with tangible benefits.

It encompasses a collection of shared values, beliefs, and practices that prioritize safety within your facility. These attitudes and actions permeate every level of your organization, from senior leadership to your newest worker. This shared commitment ensures safety is never eclipsed by any other concern.

Safety culture is vital for any organization that wants to protect itself and its workforce. Don’t let your warehouse become a breeding ground for incidents and accidents.

Read on to discover why a culture of safety is so indispensable and how you can create your own.

Why Is a Culture of Safety Valuable?

When safety culture is integral to everyday decisions and operations in your warehouse, four key benefits emerge.

• Fewer injuries. You'll notice fewer accidents and, correspondingly, fewer injuries. This protects your facility against expensive worker's compensation claims and medical expenses.
• Improved productivity. Fewer injuries mean more uptime, which means more productivity.
• Increased employee morale. Workers who aren’t afraid of getting hurt on the job are happier workers. Lowering risk improves their effectiveness and makes them more likely to stay on with the company.
• Fewer OSHA citations. Safety culture makes it easier to adhere to safety regulations. When safety is top of mind for every member of your operation, standards are less likely to slip. This prevents costly OSHA citations and violations.

A culture of safety has far-reaching benefits that make it vital to the development of your organization.

How Do You Create a Safety Culture in Your Warehouse?

You can create a culture of safety in your warehouse by following these simple steps.

1. Top-Down Commitment

The only way for safety culture to flourish is if management embraces it.

To achieve this, leadership must meet a few minimum criteria. First, managers and supervisors should lead by example. They must follow all established safety protocols and wear appropriate PPE whenever the environment dictates.

Second, leadership must allocate sufficient resources to safety programs. This includes monetary and human resources for training, warehouse safety products, and personnel. Safety products, in particular, must not get short shrift. Products such as seatbelts, blue spotlights, and backup handles are small investments with big impacts. Without sufficient resources, safety programs are doomed to fail.

Finally, managers and executives must send a clear message about the importance of safety. Regular, consistent communication emphasizing safety as the priority is vital.

Leadership must show that their commitment to safety is more than just lip service.

2. Bottom-Up Involvement

Engage employees of every level in the safety process.

Start by forming safety committees. These teams should include members from across the organization to ensure representation from every affected group.

Next, encourage accurate safety reporting. This involves creating a system by which any employee can report good behavior, unsafe actions, hazards, and near misses. This system should be non-punitive so that employees don’t feel like they are getting someone in trouble by reporting a valid concern.

Include all levels of employees in discussions about new protocols and procedures. This ensures you have accurate feedback from the people most affected.

Employees must feel involved and heard by management throughout this process.

3. Identify Current Threats

Conduct an honest inventory of current threats to employee safety.

Understanding where there is room for improvement is vital to prevent future accidents. This includes evaluating every single risk within your facility. These risks might include equipment-related threats, hazardous chemicals, unergonomic workstations, environmental hazards, and risky behavior. Survey your facility to create a comprehensive list. Our free warehouse safety checklists can help you get started.

Use your safety survey as a road map for future improvement.

4. Effective Training

Effective and comprehensive warehouse safety training is foundational to creating a culture of safety in your warehouse.

Training allows your employees to recognize hazards and better understand established protocols. Training ensures your team knows how to conduct themselves safely and what to do if they encounter a hazard or accident.

Safety training should start at the time of onboarding for new hires. Employees must encounter the company’s safety culture from their very first day on the job. Additionally, this training should be regularly updated with refresher training to keep knowledge current. It must also include training in any specialized activities that the employee will perform, such as forklift operation. Our library of safety videos can help you develop these training programs.

Training should be interactive and engaging and include assessments to document comprehension.

5. Transparent Policies and Procedures

Establish clearly understood, well-documented procedures and policies to promote safety within your facility.

These procedures are most effective if they are easily accessible to all employees. Moreover, they should cover all warehouse safety rules. Use your safety survey as a guide for what additional procedures you need. Finally, update these policies regularly to ensure they remain current with the latest standards.

The more accessible, understandable, and comprehensive your procedures are, the more effective they will be.

6. Routine Safety Audits

A culture of safety requires constant vigilance to ensure compliance.

Regular audits should be conducted to ensure warehouse safety training. Effective audits should follow a formalized procedure and engage affected employees. This ensures a thorough examination of practices while instilling a sense of ownership in your team. The audit results should produce a clear, concise, and actionable report.

Make safety audits a routine part of your business practice to ensure you always stay on the leading edge of safety.

7. Maintain a Safety-First Mentality

Claiming safety as the priority and actually practicing a safety-first mindset are two different things.

Promoting a safety-first mentality involves the bilateral approach of fostering open communication about safety issues and recognizing safe behavior. Employees should feel empowered to discuss concerns over safety and their peers without fearing retaliation or feeling like they are "ratting out" a coworker. Likewise, positive behavior needs acknowledgment and reward through a mechanism that highlights employees for adhering to safe practices.

Finally, maintain this safety-first mindset by integrating safety discussions into daily activities such as team meetings and shift hand-overs.

8. Promote Forklift Safety

One area of warehouse safety that merits special mention is forklift safety.

While forklift accidents only account for a relatively small proportion of warehouse accidents, these tend to be more serious. As a result, instilling extra caution around forklift use is critical to developing a culture of safety within your warehouse. Ensure all staff have the appropriate forklift training for their function.

Our forklift training programs make this simple. We provide all the required training in an engaging, easy-to-digest program so you don’t have to develop one from scratch.

Ensure your team has the forklift safety training they need to stay safe.

Your Safety Culture Partner

Safety culture demands company-wide commitment and a full arsenal of resources.

There's a lot to manage and organize, but we can help. Southern States Toyotalift has the experience and resources to jump-start your safety culture. From warehouse safety products to forklift training, we can help you make safety the priority.

To learn more about safety culture or to request a consultation, contact us online or visit one of our locations throughout Georgia and Florida.

Florida
Jacksonville
Lakeland
Ocala
Orlando
Tampa
Winter Haven

Georgia
Albany
Macon
Columbus
Valdosta

Further Reading
7 Must-Have Forklift Safety Accessories
Going the Distance for Warehouse Safety
3 Most Common Forklift Incidents and How To Prevent Them