Safety Knights

How big is your company? We have less than 100 total for both locations. I used to do small committees but made a change to having all shift safety meetings every 2-4 weeks. Its been more engaging and ensures everyone gets the same message and involvement. But if you have huge shifts that would be tough..

The only real way these things ever work is if the owner of the company considers it a priority and communicates that priority to his c-suite minions and on down the command structure. If your existence at the company is deemed a priority....go to whom establishes that fact (the need for EHS) and enlighten them to the benefits of the committee, what it will do, how it work...have a plan, communicate that. If the person agrees, ask for their direct and verbal support to the operations people, etc for the owner, ceo, etc to tell them it's important and to make time for it. If you are having trouble getting hourly workers involved, you need to build relationships with the workers to get passed the us vs them mentality of workers vs management. All workers, even none union have leads by job title even seniority that the others listen to. Identify these people and who has the influence and get them on your side. Get their help and input on making meaningful change together, show them the process works and they will take it seriously.

Before you eliminate safety committees altogether, check on your state requirements. We have a location in Nebraska which has a requirement as part of their WC regulations that companies have a safety committee and spells out how it should be structured and frequency.

It is tricky sometimes to get employees to want to see the value of safety committees. If you can have upper management involved in attending the meetings it might help as it shows their commitment to the employees, especially if they are able to follow through with items brought up in the meeting. We've been fairly lucky in that my supervisor, our Director of Operations, whom would probably be considered a VP of operations at other corporations, is big on safety and many times sits in on the meetings along with following up on many of the items brought up.

Since you're new, I would recommend spending time with employees out on the floor, getting face to face feedback and building rapport with folks (sounds basic but hear me out). Once they get comfortable with you they will start sharing their observations, concerns, etc. and that's when you would invite them to be on the team, we call it Safety Team.

For our workplace we have it as a voluntary group, and during meetings we give them the scoop on what's going on, recent near misses or injuries, projects coming up around the site, upcoming training, and then we open the floor to questions, concerns, airing of grievances etc. And then - the most important part - followup on the stuff they talk about, so the meeting isn't just you talking at them, it's them giving you stuff to do. So they can see the outcome of their contribution.

Also since nobody has said it, food. People love food.

Welcome to Safety. Nothing is easy, nothing is for sure, but when the stars align its awesome.

Anyway, couple of ideas to make the Safety Committee popular.
Make them your Guinee pigs for field testing of new ideas or equipment. I used them for the Type 2 hardhat selection process. They had first crack at what they liked, disliked, and got to keep the helmets afterwards. T-Shirt design input, third party vendor training topics (they got to be the volunteer for putting out fires, and dangling from the fall protection demo truck). When I get hats, tshirts, etc from vendors I include them in the freebie handouts. Policy and procedure creation is huge. They may not get to write the policies, but they make their voice heard with concerns or ideas that I consider.

What not to do. Do not use food to bait them in joining. I want their attention and participation when we get together, and distractions like food kill it. Make it meaningful, or don't bother.

Just my 2 cents.