What is the value of aligning your safety initiatives to your business goals?

When considering your business as a whole, it may seem necessary to align your safety initiatives to your business goals because they can seem like separate entities. In fact, working to align these two major components of your business is extremely beneficial, not just for your company morale and employee retention, but also for your bottom line.
Start with Teamwork
Do you promote teamwork on your worksites and throughout your company? As companies have come to understand the benefits of a safe worksite, they have begun to ask the question of how to improve health and safety initiatives. Creating a culture that not only supports but encourages partnership and teamwork between all departments is a huge step in the right direction (learn how to get started in How to Create a Safety First Culture).
Get Input From All Levels and Departments
Safer work environments are cost effective, retain employees, and produce better products. Including representatives from every facet of the company helps ensure that all needs are met. What works in one department may not have the same impact in another but some ideas may improve both (read how to Get Your CEO to Support Safety With the Curve Approach). When you include people from every level and from every department, you are relaying to your team not only that you care about a safe worksite, you care about their input and ultimately, about them.
Align and Customize
Safety is not a one-size-fits-all in most cases. Customizing your safety initiatives to your team’s specific needs means integrating them with your business goals, not just for the bottom line but for the welfare of your team. From the very top of the company all the way down the chain, every person should be held accountable for the health and safety standards of the whole team. Integration of proper safety standards can unite employees in a common goal of keeping workers safe and impact every other aspect of the workplace, including the bottom line.
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Written by Tamara Parris

Tamara Parris is the VP of Community and Business Development at Safeopedia, and owner of EHS Professionals Group on LinkedIn. Her passion is working with other EHS Professionals to collaborate in thought leadership, networking and connecting our industry peers to resources that will increase profitability and safety practices within their workplaces. Tamara has been in the Health and Safety field for over 20 years, her industry experiences include the Construction sector, CCTV and Security, and Commercial Retail industries.
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