Make sure farm safety is top priority

Creating a safety culture at your workplace requires a proactive safety attitude. Consider these tips to get workers onboard.

Talk about safety
The more you talk up the importance of safety, the more you’ll generate awareness and attention at the management, supervisory and employee levels. Regular discussion helps promote a safety culture that encourages inclusion and information sharing. It’s widely recognized that the safest workplaces are where workers hear people talking regularly about safety.

Encourage safety suggestions
Who knows a job better than the workers who perform it—especially highly experienced and skilled ones? Listen to them. Encourage workers to share their ideas for making their jobs safer. You’ll improve safety conditions and performance, while involving them in the improvement process.

Act promptly to correct hazards and improve safety conditions
Whenever you identify hazards or workers bring them to your attention, act promptly to correct the situation. If you don’t fix safety problems—even the minor ones—right away, employees will think you don’t care, so why should they?

Provide ongoing safety and health training and information
Make sure employees have the skills, knowledge and understanding they need to work safely and avoid accidents. Well-trained employees develop good safety attitudes and are more apt to make safety a priority.

Reward safe performance
If you’re not already doing so, make safety performance a part of employee performance appraisals and communicate your expectations often. Employees who understand that pay increases, promotions and other rewards are contingent on having a proactive safety attitude tend to take workplace safety more seriously.

Set positive examples
Make sure your managers and supervisors set a positive example and consistently demonstrate safe behaviors themselves.