Safety Meeting How-To

As 2005 draws to a close, this is an excellent time for you to look back over the year to review the effectiveness of your employee health and safety training program so you can plan your safety meetings for 2006.  Over the next couple of issues of JDT Unbound, I’ll offer information on the how to plan and conduct your safety meetings.

If you have a Safety Committee, it is usually charged with the task of ensuring that all safety issues are addressed and followed.  The Safety Committee needs the input and support from supervisors and managers.  Supervisors and managers don’t always have the right to set company policy, but they do have the major responsibility for carrying out policies.  Through safety meetings, you can reinforce safety on an ongoing basis.  Most workers don’t usually hear something once a year and then have it become an automatic part of their work habits.  This is where safety meetings play a major role.

Begin by planning your safety meetings for next year.  Your meetings need to address the specific needs, strengths, and weaknesses of your workers.  Because you know your audience, you should be able to determine the approach that will work best for them.

When planning the type, length, and format of your safety meetings, you need to consider such factors as

•    Age of your workers,

•    Educational level,

•    Experience,

•    Length of meeting,

•    Extent of prior safety training, and

•    Attitude toward work and management.

Age:  Sometimes younger workers won’t take their jobs seriously much less safety issues.  So many times I’ve heard from older workers “I’ve been doing it this way for 30 years and haven’t gotten hurt yet.”  On both of these age groups, you may want to use examples of injuries that have occurred in dental laboratories.

Educational level:  With the diverse workforce of today, you may have workers who do not speak or read English.  Some people will not admit this shortcoming; so you need to be alert to those who need additional help understanding written and/or verbal instructions.  It’s not uncommon to include professionals in your safety training meeting for sign language and translation into other languages.  OSHA requires you to provide safety training so that it is understandable by the workers.  Hands-on demonstrations seem to work very well to convey the information.

Experience: For less experienced workers, you need to take a slower approach to products, processes, and technology.  Narrow your topic or you’ll overload workers with information.  Ask more experienced workers to assist with the meeting.  This keeps the more experienced workers from becoming bored and provides interaction between workers.  You may also find that this involvement reinforces the more experienced worker’s recognition of and commitment to the importance of safety.

Length of meeting: If your audience can’t sit still or concentrate for long periods, then you should set the length and frequency of your meetings with that in mind.  Ask yourself how long an attention span do they have, how long can they sit still, how much can they absorb at once.  The work schedule will also help set the length of your meeting.  You don’t want to disrupt the production schedule.  This is one of the toughest issues I’ve observed with dental laboratories, but with good planning and responsible recognition by top management, safety meetings can be scheduled very effectively.  The meeting format (videos vs. lectures) also is a factor in determining the length of your meeting.  Consider focusing on one topic and using as much hands-on practice as you can.

Extent of prior safety training: Safety meetings become easier with more frequency.  Make sure they understand the basics and have incorporated them into their jobs before adding new cautions and procedures.

Attitude toward work and management:  Hostile workers can make meetings difficult.  They only attend because they have to and they’re reluctant to participate in discussions and hands-on practice sessions.  Face this problem at the beginning of the meeting.  Ask workers to express their feelings, but to keep an open mind and try to be constructive in their comments.  You can always fall back on the fact that companies don’t have a choice when it comes to safety due to governmental regulations.  These regulations not only require the company to provide the training but also require employees to practice the safety methods and practices that they’ve been taught on the job.
Safety meetings should be a key part of your safety program and you should find that they would motivate your workers to get safety out of the classroom and onto the floor.  Make one of your goals for 2006 to implement frequent safety meetings.  Next month, I’ll provide additional information on how to plan and conduct effective safety meetings.

Do you have a question for Mary Borg? E-mail jdt@nadl.org.

 Need human resource answers? NADL members can call a free human resources hotline.
 Click here to discover the benefits of membership.