Managing Safety in Unprecedented Times - Part 2

In Part 1 we discussed the importance of authenticity, getting specialist advice, building community and having good contingency plans.

In this article we examine 3 additional strategies that safety leaders need to adopt in these challenging times: These strategies are networking, modelling self-care and investing in personal professional development.

Networking

Safety Professionals in similar industries face similar challenges when it comes to health and safety in the workplace. Hence, by networking with peers from similar industries we are most likely to gain new insights and ideas on managing safety.

This means we do not have to reinvent the wheel and conduct time consuming original research to solve our problems.

By collaborating with other professionals that are passionate about the same things, we create a forum where we can share ideas, successes, challenges and experiences. Thus, benefiting all participants involved.

Modelling Self-Care

In unprecedented times, it becomes easy for our employees to forget to look after themselves, which in turn impacts on their wellbeing and productivity. During lockdown we can lose essential routines like informal team meetings, regular exercise, good eating healthy and connecting with friends and family.

Some impacts of this on an employee are anxiety, low morale, lack of mental clarity, and feeling stressed. This can affect the business efficiency e.g. increase of sick leave or reduction in productivity.

Therefore, as safety champions we need to actively encourage and model self-care. We can start with simple initiatives like encouraging everyone to take breaks during work hours, get involved in physical exercise, and possibly share photos of what they are doing for self-care on the company’s social media page.

The focus here should be to provide information and set up initiatives that support your team's overall physical and mental health. This in turn will boost morale, wellbeing and overall business productivity.

Remember to get senior management involved in your initiative to motivate others in the team to participate.

Personal Development

The emergence of new risks and hazards due to lockdowns and restrictions necessitates the importance of upskilling through personal development. Therefore, safety professionals should seek opportunities to improve themselves to deliver on their target safety goals. We must look at how we provide safety and wellbeing in the workplace and adapt to current circumstances and demands.

For example, if we look at the medium of delivering safety training as a subject, we see a transition from face-to-face delivery to an online mode of delivery. A challenge might arise when we do not get the level of engagement as more, often achieved in face-to-face delivery, compared to the online delivery method.

We must be proactive in availing ourselves of the latest training techniques and information to deliver on crucial safety deliverables, even if it means adopting a different approach.

The drive to ensure that we keep our team members safe should become the catalyst in enrolling in relevant safety training and related personal development courses. After all, the key to continued growth as a safety leader is the willingness to continually look for opportunities to educate ourselves on best health and safety practices.