Hi, Bryan McWhorter here from Safeopedia with another safety moment.
I have a quick question for you. In your work environment, how often do you or members of management or those in leadership roles do safety walks?
I can remember once when I was a supervisor, I'd showed up to work and I was a supervisor for a large area, a production area for glass making. So about 52 employees in this area and a definitely a hazard-rich environment because we were actually making and cutting glass. And as I showed up I noticed my manager, my boss, was just coming in off the shop floor. So a great guy named Fred. I asked Fred what he was doing and what he was up to and he told me that he had just done a safety walk. He purposely came in early that day to walk around to all the employees to remind them that their safety was number one to him. That he valued their safety and did not want them to take risks for production. I loved it. We really embraced that over the next few years, and we set scheduled safety walks.
Employees know that management spends time and effort with things that are important. If you're not going out and talking to them every now and then about just safety, then they're not going to see safety as important.
Remember, we're paid to do a job, which is performance. So performance tends to overshadow safety often. We need to keep wind in the safety sail. So what I would suggest is scheduling good safety walks. Where those in leadership roles, and it's again, anywhere. This can be at a factory construction site, a restaurant or retail, but going around once a week, once whatever makes sense to you, and just talking about safety and reminding people that you're a member of our team, you're valued, we protect one another.
Until next time, Bryan McWhorter with Safeopedia. Stay safe.