News & Information Blog

A few weeks ago we had OSHA Safe + Sound Week, the National Safety Council has National Safety Month, Construction Safety Week, OSHA’s National Safety Stand Down, and so on, and on. Workplaces often have a safety day, or week, or month that entails a lot of training and emphasis on safety. 

While it is great to recognize the importance of safety it must be a year 'round, part of the day to day activity.  Events come and go.  If you have a Safety Month what happens in the other 11?  If you have a big awards ceremony for someone going above and beyond what about the bread and butter of safety, the guy who does it right day in and day out?  It always seems to be the same people who get that above and beyond award, too. This can lead an employee to feel dissociated from the safety culture and potentially disaffected.

We, at Simple Safety Coach, spent a lot of time thinking about encouraging, enhancing, and recognizing employee participation without adding paperwork and headache to the safety staff.  We created an automated points process that not only tells the employee "I see and hear you" it is also a measure of the overall health of the safety culture.

The process is quite simple, when employees log in to Simple Safety Coach everything they do is 'tagged' with their user code.  This automates the points process; we call them Participation Points.  At this time, we have the following opportunities for employee participation:

• Making a Praise or Prevention Safety Observation Report
• Having been Praised in a Safety Observation
• Verification of completion of a Safety Observation Investigation
• Participation in a Safety Observation Investigation
• Implementing the corrective action in a Safety Observation
• Completing a form
• Reporting an Accident
• Participation in an Accident Investigation
• Contributing as an Accident Witness
• Implementing a corrective action in an Accident Investigation
• Verification of the implementation of the corrective action
• Completion of Safety Training

Participation points can be used in a number of ways:

• Goals set to be completed by a deadline, such as:
  • An annual review
  • A competition between
    • Shifts
    • Departments
    • Facilities
  • A measurement of the health of the Safety Culture
  • An indication of areas of dissatisfaction with a supervisor, work condition, safety or the company
  • A means of recognizing the quiet excellence of an employee

Not only is this a system of recognition but it allows employees to choose how they want to participate if they don't want to be on a Safety Committee.  It enhances the Safety Manager's ability to delegate tasks and easily track progress towards completion.  This not only frees him or her up for more complex tasks but generates a sense of accomplishment and inclusion for the employee.

While the use of Participation Points is optional for the Simple Safety Coach subscriber, we sincerely hope you'll give it a try!  Check it out in our free trial subscription.