A job site can have rules and regulations. Employers can talk about safety in meetings. They can provide safety equipment and train employees so that they know how to use it. They can pass OSHA inspections. They can even talk to employees about accident risks and use examples of accidents that have happened in the past.
These are all great steps and they can help. However, safety on the job is more than a set of rules or access to protective gear; it is a mindset. Everyone has to buy in. Employees and supervisors have to adopt this mindset and maintain it every day. That’s the only way to lower the risks of an accident.
Management must lead the way, and they have to do it by example. If a company tells to use fall protection gear and then the supervisors don’t use it, are the employees under them really going to use it? They learn more from actions than words, and that’s the only way to create the proper mindset in the workforce in general.
In fact, failing to lead by example can cause employees to feel pressure to shirk the rules themselves. If no one uses fall protection gear, is that safety-minded employee going to feel bad to slow the team down while putting on their harness? Are they going to feel pressure from the supervisor to just get the job done quickly? That can undermine any safety rules a company has.
When accidents happen and employees suffer serious injuries on the job, they need to know what options they have to ‘ in Wisconsin.
