13 Signs You’re Creating a Safety-Focused Culture in Your Warehouse
A safety-focused culture helps companies keep their workforce productive and free from injury. When a worker gets injured on the job, a warehouse can suffer from productivity losses while their employee heals, and they may even suffer financial penalties due to negligence. Knowing how to improve warehouse safety standards and create a more safety-focused culture can benefit a warehouse significantly. A safety-focused culture protects workers from injury, helps your warehouse stay efficient and raises your company’s credibility as an industry leader.
To build a safety-focused culture, start by learning more about what a successful culture looks like and some common signs that a company emphasizes safety. Additionally, you may want to know more about how to prioritize safety in the warehouse and make incident prevention a top concern.
Jump to Sections:
- What is a Safety-Focused Warehouse Culture?
- How Can You Tell You’re Creating a Safety-Focused Culture in Your Warehouse?
- How to Develop a Safety-Focused Culture in Your Warehouse
- How to Make Incident Prevention a Priority in Your Warehouse Culture
- Contact Cherry’s Industrial Equipment for Safe and Clean Material Handling Equipment
What Is a Safety-Focused Warehouse Culture?
A safety-focused culture starts with getting everyone to buy into safety practices from top to bottom. Instead of being a side note in a warehouse’s policies and procedures, safety should be a central focus. A warehouse with employees actively engaging in and building on safety practices helps create a robust safety-focused culture. Beyond having a set of regulations and rules, a productive safety-focused culture involves creating a warehouse-wide mindset committed to preventing employees from harm.
A strong culture of safety also includes investing in reliable, high-quality machinery and training. An investment in top-tier equipment sends a clear message to employees that their company cares about their well-being and wants to make their jobs easier. Advanced equipment usually comes with new safety features and reduces the amount of potentially dangerous manual labor staff perform. Additionally, putting money into a safety program trains staff members to do their jobs securely and efficiently.
How Can You Tell You’re Creating a Safety-Focused Culture in Your Warehouse?
A warehouse with a safety-focused culture is easy to spot. For example, a warehouse that encourages their staff to bring concerns to management, addresses challenges before they become a problem and defines their wellness goals is much more likely to have a safety-focused culture.
Learn more about some primary signs of a safety-focused culture at a warehouse below.
1. Staff Know Their Role
A significant factor in warehouse safety is staff members understanding their responsibilities and who they should communicate with about questions or concerns. Employees who know their duties and have the right resources to complete them are more likely to complete the job correctly. Familiarity with their role can also help them see when a task goes beyond their capabilities and realize when it’s time to reach out to someone trained to help.
2. Detailed Procedures for Illnesses and Injuries
When an injury happens on the job site, a safe warehouse will have procedures for reporting the injury and investigating why it occurred. These procedures can help warehouses prevent similar injuries from occurring in the future and see how to teach warehouse safety standards more effectively in the future. Encouraging workers to report illnesses is also crucial, as companies can take steps to ensure sickness doesn’t spread to other workers.
3. Safety Improvements Happen Before Accidents Occur
When a staff member notices a potential safety hazard and reports it, a warehouse with a commitment to safety will address the concern before an accident happens. If a company has a long track record of putting security standards and controls in place after a worker points out a hazard, it’s evidence they know how to operate a safe warehouse.
4. Employees Know the Warehouse’s Health and Safety Rules
If employees embrace health and safety standards, they’re more likely to stick to them while working. A company that emphasizes safety will encourage their workers to invest time in learning more about the topic. Some standard practices include group training sessions and allotting time for workers to review safety information individually.
5. Safety Commitment From Leadership
A warehouse’s leadership team sets the tone for the entire organization. Employees will notice when managers and supervisors don’t take safety standards seriously. A company whose leadership team demonstrates their commitment to safety daily helps other staff members get on board and engage in protective practices.
6. Clearly Defined Goals
A safety-focused culture comes from having clear expectations and goals for all employees to follow and work toward. Warehouses that communicate their clearly defined safety commitments to staff are much more likely to have a safe warehouse. A written plan that states the warehouse’s goals and how to achieve them can be a significant asset to workers, especially if they can easily access this.
7. Obvious Financial Investments in Safety
Companies that have invested in high-quality equipment and storage solutions put themselves in a better position to protect their workers and materials. Better-quality equipment will usually come with enhanced safety features to prevent injuries. Additionally, investments in safety signage and other materials send a clear-cut message that a warehouse values safety.
8. Encouragement of Facility-Wide Communication About Health and Safety
Warehouse managers committed to creating a safety-focused culture encourage everyone to report potential hazards and health topics. When the leadership team opens communication to everyone, staff members can provide detailed input to management and engage more with safety initiatives. Many successful warehouses encourage workers to talk to management about their concerns and set up straightforward communication practices to foster better conversations.
9. Managers Spend Time on Warehouse Floor
An excellent way leadership can improve their warehouse’s safety is to get out of their offices and spend time down on the floor with their workers. When a manager comes down to the floor, they’re more likely to see potential problems and help staff correct any mistakes they might be making. Additionally, managers who spend time with workers are more likely to earn their respect, and workers will be more willing to follow any rules they set as a result.
10. Employees Play an Active Role in Safety Initiatives
A culture that prioritizes safety can’t come from the top alone. Regular employees need to take an active role in safety initiatives as well. The most successful warehouses will engage their employees in the creation of safety rules and guidelines. A safe company also ensures workers don’t take a passive role in their training, and they set up opportunities for workers to engage with safety materials.
11. A Fair Discipline System Is in Place
Even with a top-notch management team and detailed resources on safety, it’s likely there will still be some employees who want to cut corners or refuse to follow the rules. A safety-focused warehouse has a fair discipline system to reprimand improper practices and show workers they can’t get away with skirting around regulations. Any discipline system should also focus on helping employees who break the rules see why they’re doing something wrong and how they can fix it.
12. Welcoming of Outside Audits
When a company is willing to let an outsider inspect and evaluate their facilities, it’s more likely their warehouse is confident in their health and safety policies. An external auditor will provide an outside view of the warehouse’s practices and equipment, providing companies with information on where they can improve. An attentive warehouse leadership team will address any recommendations from these reports and continue to schedule regular audits.
13. Rewarding Good Behavior
One of the best ways to reinforce safety practices is to reward employees who consistently follow them and embody company values. Verbal recognition and monetary awards can be effective incentives to get workers to follow the rules. When employees see the rewards associated with following safety rules, they’re more likely to buy into a warehouse’s safety-focused culture.
How to Develop a Safety-Focused Culture in Your Warehouse
If you notice your warehouse is missing some crucial components for a safety-focused culture, you may want to address them to improve your warehouse’s health and safety. Some valuable warehouse management tips for crafting a safety-focused culture include offering more training programs, encouraging warehouse safety standards and creating a safety team.
If you want to learn how to teach employees to be safe, you can take one considerable step by training operators on equipment. Besides educating them on the primary equipment they’ll be operating, they should also be familiar with the tools they may need to use when filling in for other employees. This training should be a continuous process, rather than just a one-time event.
Management should also encourage warehouse safety standards at all times. One way to do this is to have managers communicate how much they value their employees’ safety to staff. Additionally, they can empower staff to report potential safety risks to their manager directly.
Companies can also improve their warehouse’s culture by posting visual reminders about safety practices throughout the warehouse. These can also include information about how many days have passed without incident to encourage workers to keep security priorities top of mind. Remember that OSHA requires companies to place occupational health and safety posters in visible locations throughout their workspaces.
Additionally, offering tangible incentives and rewarding safe behaviors can help workers buy into the culture you’re trying to create. To take your safety to the next level, you can appoint a team tasked with identifying risk areas in your warehouse and empower members to take steps to address them. A safety-focused company also regularly maintains their equipment and keeps their warehouse clutter-free.
How to Make Incident Prevention a Priority in Your Warehouse Culture
Your warehouse workers likely operate various machinery in the warehouse to transport and handle materials throughout your facilities. Incident prevention is all about preventing your staff members from getting into accidents or harming others while operating equipment.
Learn more about some of the top warehouse safety guidelines for incident prevention below.
- Blind-spot awareness: As operators navigate heavy-duty machinery throughout the warehouse, they may have some blind spots when driving. To ensure these don’t lead to an accident, have a spotter help the driver navigate the warehouse. Additionally, communicate with other workers about a machine’s blind spots and require them to make eye contact with the driver before coming near the equipment.
- Improve communication: Any workers using machinery should know to communicate with staff members working around them. Two-way radios and hand signals can improve communication to ensure workers don’t come in the machinery’s path and injure themselves.
- Unload and load equipment safely: When loading or unloading equipment, ensure the machinery is on level ground to lower the risk of it sliding off ramps or rolling over. If your crew unloads around others, clearing the area and using a spotter to direct others away from the unloading zone can also be helpful.
- Identify hazards: Before operators take a piece of equipment through the warehouse, they should be aware of any obstructions on the ground or overhead hazards a larger machine could come in contact with. By identifying these hazards, your workers can know what paths they should take and where they should be extra careful.
- Watch load limits: If a machine lifts materials, operators should be aware of the equipment’s load limit. A load limit tells operators how much weight the equipment can lift safely. They should never exceed this amount, as it can cause the machine to break and materials to fall off, possibly injuring other workers.
- Wear seat belts: One of the most straightforward practices for incident prevention is to ensure operators wear their seat belts when operating machinery. In an accident, seat belts can prevent severe injury, especially in the case of a rollover.
- Enter and exit machinery safely: Workers can get injured when they enter or exit the equipment cab if they don’t do so correctly. Warehouses shouldn’t let operators jump out of the cab, and they should take the time to quickly repair any damaged steps or handholds.
- Perform regular walk-around inspections: Every day, operators should do a quick walk-around check of the equipment they’re going to use. It’s often smart to provide operators with an inspection checklist to ensure they perform the appropriate checks. If they find any damage, operators should report it to a warehouse’s maintenance staff before operating the machinery.
- Lock and tag machinery before maintenance: When a piece of equipment is unsecured or incorrectly shut down, the engine could start or release stored energy while a staff member performs maintenance, leading to injuries. Locking and tagging various parts of the machine can prevent startups or other hazards from occurring.
Contact Cherry’s Industrial Equipment for Safe and Clean Material Handling Equipment
A critical component of a safety-focused culture is giving employees the tools they need to hit their productivity targets while also staying as safe as possible. Cherry’s Industrial Equipment can provide you with these tools in the form of highly effective material handling equipment. Our company designs machinery with safety as a primary focus to ensure your employees and materials remain secure. For those who need more specialized equipment or storage solutions, we can help design a custom solution to meet your specific needs.
Browse our selection of material handling equipment. If you have any questions, contact us today.