If you run a business, it pays to make your workers feel appreciated because this will definitely make them more productive. You can reward staff at Christmas, anniversaries or Thanksgiving. You don’t even need excuses or special occasions to reward your workers. Just give them pleasant surprises sometimes and this will make them feel you appreciate their contributions to the success of your company. Below are some ways to make your workers perform better and improve workplace safety.
Have a Lecture on Workplace Safety
One way to improve workplace safety is to make a conscious effort to let your employees know what is required of them and what they can do to improve safety in the workplace. You can bring in an expert to give your workers a lecture on safety measures. Ideally, this lecture should take place on a weekend. This way, you ensure that all the workers are present, and they listen attentively to the lecture. To make matters more interesting, you should include a question-and-answer session after the lecture. Give token prizes to people who ask the right questions and those who give the right answers to the lecturer.
Organize an Essay Writing Contest
Now, this is one is bound to make your workers put on their creative writing hats. Organize an essay writing competition on the theme of workplace safety and list fantastic prizes for the employees who craft the best three essays. As the organizer, you should give your workers a word count, an essay title and a few other specifications. Note that your employees are not professional writers, so you don’t have to focus on writing style when you grade these essays. What you are looking out for is content and pragmatic ideas on the theme of workplace safety. In case you cannot do a good job grading these essays, you should invite a few journalists or English language teachers to help you mark and grade the essays. Give prizes to the best three writers and you will encourage them to keep working harder.
Organize a Quiz
Another excellent idea is to organize a quiz on the topic of workplace safety. Make it clear to your employees that they should take the quiz serious as mouth-watering prizes are up for grabs. If this quiz is coming after the essay writing contest, you should make it clear to your employees that these contests (essay writing and quiz) will be regular features of your company. This will make them understand that you take workplace safety seriously and this will motivate them to be serious about it. You should have explicit rules for the quiz and offer winners exciting prizes to encourage them. Don’t make the questions too difficult as this might discourage the participants. Just make the questions relevant to workplace safety and your employees will even have fun as they answer the questions.
Live by Example
Another great way to create awareness for safety measures is serve as a living example to your employees. You know the old saying that “one example is worth a thousand sermons”. You want to boost better safety performance so you should serve as a good example. Just practice what you preach, and your workers will learn from you. In this context, it means that you should make a conscious effort to take measures that promote workplace safety. Record these measures and when you have recorded enough of these measures, you should set one day aside to address your staff on the safety measures you have been observing for a while. Give yourself a reward in front of everybody and tell them they will get the same rewards if they do the same things you are doing.
