How to make time for safety and still run your operation

Small to medium Ag producers across the United States are realizing the need to start incorporating safety into their business culture & framework. This need is due to many factors, some of the top being increasingly heightened consequences of an accident: larger medical bills, higher risk of lawsuit, and increased fines from OSHA. Even just a single accident is much more risky and expensive today. Not to mention the emotional impact to your business and community around you.

That being said, it has been extremely hard for businesses with no safety training experience to get started. There are two primary reasons for this:

1. It’s hard to change culture & employees attitude
2. It can take time away from running your operation

Let’s dive into each reason and explore potential solutions.

1. Changing culture & employee attitude

Everyone has experienced how difficult it can be to get people to change, even with obviously beneficial change! It can be even harder with safety issues, especially when many employees see safety precautions as barriers to getting the job done, or they think they already know everything about safety.

Not only is change hard to navigate, but it can be difficult to begin changing in the first place! Maybe you’ve tried to shift how your employees think about safety by scouring the web for a safety video to have a discussion around. After finding a usable video, you get all your employees together only to have a mediocre discussion. Not only was the experience frustrating for you, but your employees now have a negative perception of what safety meetings are like.

2. Taking time away from running your operation

As a business owner, you have to wear many different hats. You only have so much time and you need to stay focused on your core business. You likely don’t have time or energy to build a safety program from scratch. Even when you find some good videos, you still need to strategize how to have a group discussion around with your team.

You don’t have the time to build a program, so you find a few courses online and assign them to employees. This solution presents new challenges, as these programs have low accountability. How can you be sure if someone is really learning or just clicking through the training? 

By this point, you’re probably thinking “so what can I do to create a culture around safety??” Here are some tips to take your safety training to another level and start building safety culture:

• Find a plug-and-play solution - Stop spending your valuable time trying to piece together content from the web. Your time is too valuable and this method isn’t going to provide the results you need.
• Use group training - Creating a culture around safety can’t be done in isolation. Take advantage of this opportunity to bring your team together around a cause. Safety training can be more than just a boring meeting, make it a time to do team building!
• Choose a facilitator and get them the tools they need - You can facilitate the discussions in your safety meetings or you could choose another facilitator. The important thing here is to make sure the facilitator is equipped with content and authority. Make sure they have the tools they need to get a discussion going.
• Ask for some perspective from a supporter - It can be hard to set goals that are realistic while still stretching. Find someone experienced with safety training and ask them to review your plan. Learn from their experience.

How Good Day’s Work can help.

We are a safety training company with the only completely ag focused OSHA training courses out there. We’ve designed the courses to be highly engaging and relevant to your team. Each of our video courses comes with a leader guide to help anyone facilitate a great group training session with minimal prep time. Our team can give you the support you need and help you gain perspective! We can help you build out plans, set goals, and keep you accountable with regular check-ins.

Our facilitated plug-and-play group training is an effective and sustainable way to start your safety training program to ultimately lower risk and increase profitability. Get your team home safe every day with safety training that’s proven to make a difference.